


Blood on Your Shirt

by howlikeagod



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Backstory, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Daredevil!Karen, Foggy is beleaguered, Karen POV, Karen centric, Karen has powers, Karen is Daredevil, Kissing, Matt has no regard for his own personal safety, Multi, it's non-explicit and doesn't happen to any of the main characters but it's there, more comics references than are strictly necessary
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-04-17 06:25:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4656051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howlikeagod/pseuds/howlikeagod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karen Page left her hometown of Fagan Corners with ugly scars and uglier secrets. The world she finds in New York is not any kinder. Two particular lawyers, however, just might be.<br/><br/>This is the story of a hero known as a devil, but not the one you already know. Karen is not a woman without fear, but she is a woman with daring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a fun fact: rereading Spider-Gwen while watching Daredevil (and falling in love with Karen Page) will apparently result in writing your own role-reversal AU. Who'da thunk it?  
> Anyway, as a result, this fic is entirely the fault of Jason Latour and Robbi Rodriguez, Deborah Ann Woll, and tumblr users healbells and ohhcaptainrum for spurring me on. Direct your vitriol at them.

It was pitch black and silent inside the squat, crumbling building.

“C’mon, Karen,” a voice echoed in the empty room, though she couldn’t tell whose it was. “It’s creepy in here.”

Karen ignored them and went further into the dark. What little illumination her flashlight gave off was swallowed up less than a foot away. She almost tripped on something heavy lying across the floor, which caused a metallic clang when her foot struck it.

“Ah!” A startled shout came from behind. “I’m getting out of here.”

“See you later,” Karen said, but her friend had already run back outside. She peered into the shadows, reaching out with one hand, and found a cold, rusty surface. She swept her light across it.

There were buttons and switches and dull, cracked screens. It looked like the equipment they used in movies about sending people to space. Or sending missiles to Russia.

Walking further alongside the surface revealed more screens and wires in wobbling black and white. She flipped whatever switches weren’t rusted in place, ran her hands along panels of buttons, but nothing interesting happened.

Dimly, she made out the shape of two metal tanks. They were just like the containers of helium at the party store, only a lot bigger. Pipes ran from the wall, to the tanks, to whatever bulky thing took up space in the middle of the room.

Karen saw a sign on the wall, coated in too much dust to read. Below it, there was a metal wheel, the kind that turns on a hose. Karen grinned.

“They didn’t give me that nickname for nothing,” she said to herself, cheerily. She dropped her flashlight and wrapped her hands-- small, with chipped glitter nail polish and a tan line on the finger where her mood ring used to be-- around the wheel. She planned to turn it just a little, to see what it did. It stuck fast until she put her whole body into it, and then it turned all at once. Karen fell to the floor and felt pieces of grit and ancient metal cut into her palms.

Something deep in the walls let out an unholy groan. Something else was rattling, with a sound like Karen’s grandfather’s cough in the last few months before he died.

 _I hope mom doesn’t make me get a tetanus shot,_ was her last conscious thought before everything exploded.

 

* * *

 

 

A decade and a half later, Karen Page came to New York for a fresh start.

That was what she told the passively interested old friends who sent her inquiring Facebook messages. It was the throwaway answer she gave her new co-workers. It was the thing she whispered to herself, late at night, when the creeping shadows of the city couldn’t dim the lights that peered through her bedroom window like a thousand accusing eyes.

“A fresh start.” She clutched at silk bedsheets and pulled them over her face. “Not an escape.”

 

* * *

 

 

The day Karen regained consciousness to find her hands soaked in someone else’s blood, her first thought was:

_Not again._

The police pounded on her door. There were four heartbeats and the smell of Kevlar waiting on the other side of the wall. Karen trembled like a hummingbird as they burst in.

She could have fought her way out. She didn’t.

 

* * *

 

 

Her eyes flew open at sound of rattling keys just outside her cell. Karen wondered, half-asleep, why anyone would be unlocking it in the middle of the night.

 _Are those lawyers back?_ she thought. _Maybe they want to celebrate their tenth hour practicing law with their best client._

She was about to sit up and ask the guard when she realized:

Pounding heartbeat. Rapid breathing. The smell of nervous sweat.

He was absolutely, bone-deep terrified.

Karen shifted uneasily and curled her hands into fists, still pretending to be asleep. Whatever had this guard so scared was probably worth being wary of. As he moved closer, his posture shifted. She braced herself and began to wonder if the guard himself was the thing to fear.

She expected him to say something, at least, before attacking her. He got the sheet around her throat while her face was still to the wall.

She heard him, barely a breath from her ear, whisper _“I’m sorry.”_

He was bigger than Karen, and she was out of practice, but he didn’t really want to kill her and she really didn’t want to die. She found the leverage to get her legs up to the wall and push off, which sent the guard slamming into the opposite side. He cracked his head against the cold concrete blocks and went down. Karen screamed for help.

One thought cycled in her mind for hours after: _I don’t want to hurt people._

Another occurred to her, later, when she looked in the mirror to see a purpling ring of bruises around her neck, over the jagged shape of an old scar: _I don’t want to be hurt._

 

The lawyers came back. The blind one, Murdock, spoke less than his partner. While Nelson threatened to sue the precinct “so hard and fast your little blue hats will spin” for endangering his client, Murdock stood impassively. At least, he appeared so to everyone but Karen; she was the only one who could hear the measured breathing with which he hid his rage. His hands clutched the top of his cane as if about to break it. Something dark hid behind the stained glass that covered his sightless eyes.

Karen hadn’t been religious in a very long time, but she could have sworn, at that moment, she saw the Devil in Matthew Murdock.

“I think that’s enough for now, Foggy,” Murdock murmured. “Ms. Page has been through too much emotional turmoil already tonight.” Even without the ability to glance pointedly at anyone, he got the idea across. The police chief cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Let’s get her out of here.”

Karen didn’t go home after that. She needed to go back to her apartment. The source of all her trouble, the thing that brought people flocking to kill her in the first place, was there. But the smell of Daniel’s blood would still be there, too.

She went with the blind lawyer.

“Call me Matt,” he said with a disarming smile. He convinced her to take his bed while he slept on the couch, though that wasn’t a particularly hard sell. The billboard outside his apartment gave off the kind of garish light that caused Karen’s head to ache just thinking about it.

He gave up a shirt as if it were no question. Wearing clothes that didn’t cling to her skin like wet, dead leaves made Karen dizzy with relief.

“Can I ask you a question?” The words sat, heavy and awkward, in her mouth for several silent seconds before she spit them out. She took a long drink from the water Matt had offered her.

“I haven’t always been blind,” Matt said with a laugh.

“No,” she waved his answer away. “Sorry, I guess that’s what everyone wants to know, but it’s not what I was going to ask.”

Matt’s eyebrows lifted over the rims of his dark glasses. “Alright.” He felt his way around the kitchen island and came to stand closer to Karen. “What do you want to know?” He was still a few feet away, but they were no longer separated by a granite countertop.

Karen felt, suddenly, as if the day’s pain and fear had worn away her voice. “Why…” She swallowed. “Why did you believe me?” Her fingers trembled around the mug. It was with an abrupt clarity that she realized the rest of her was shaking, too. “Back at the precinct. Nobody else did, not even your partner, but you trusted I was telling the truth.” Karen finally let herself sit down. It took all her willpower not to collapse onto Matt’s couch. “Why?”

He smiled again in his congenial way and joined her on the sofa, maintaining a careful distance.

“I’m pretty good at telling when people are lying. I can’t see the traditional tells everyone talks about, but voices…” He shrugged. “They’re hard to disguise.”

“I could be a really good liar.”

“Maybe I should ask you some questions and find out.” That smile was still there, but something else danced around the corners of his mouth.

“Only if I get to ask you questions, too.” Saying this was daring. Karen remembered being twelve, the smell of a summer night and the prickly weeds that only seem to grow around chain-link fences. Being daring came with a price.

“I’d say I get to ask two questions first,” Matt said. Karen made a noise of protest. “Yes, two. One for the question you asked, and one for the question I answered without you needing to.” His words were decisive, but there was nothing commanding in his tone. He said it like asking for a favor.

“That’s quite a loophole."

Matt’s grin was sharper and toothier than before. Karen thought the difference might be that this one was genuine.

“I graduated from Columbia summa cum laude. I need something to show for it.” An honest laugh bubbled up from Karen’s chest. “So I’ll ask you two questions. Give me one truth and one lie.”

Karen nodded.

Matt kept waiting expectantly.

“Oh! Right, sorry. I, um. I nodded.” She was grateful that he couldn’t see the blush of embarrassment in her cheeks. He only smiled.

“First question: where did you grow up?”

“Boston, Massachusetts.” The lie slid off her tongue easily after months of telling it. "Born and raised.”

“Huh,” Matt said, sounding impressed. “You _are_ a pretty good liar.”

Karen thought her heart should be pounding. It would be hard to keep things from this man, and the more he knew the more danger he would be in, but all she felt was a kind of warmth. It was nice, if unfamiliar, to be known.

“I guess I owe you the truth now.” She was almost thankful that he couldn’t make eye contact with her. That made it easier to look away, like a coward.

“I don’t want you to feel like you owe me anything, Karen.” It was frankly alarming how Matt went from Cheshire-grinned charm to the earnestness of a puppy in the blink of an eye.

She laughed again, less humor this time. “It’s a little late for that. Ask away.”

She mentally prepared herself for a repeat of the same question, or another one equally as probing and equally as damning.

Instead, she got this:

“What’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?”

Karen opened and closed her mouth like a gobsmacked goldfish.

“The northern lights,” she croaked at last, then cleared her throat. “I couldn’t have been more than ten, but I remember that my dad woke me up and said ‘hey, Kare-bear, your mom’s packing a picnic. We’re going to see something amazing.’ We drove up to this hill, all open beneath the sky, and it was…” She hesitated. Matt deserved a better answer. “I can’t do it justice. Like the sky was on fire, like the world was ending. Like the world was just beginning.” She paused.

“Your father called you Kare-bear?” Matt took the opportunity to ask. Karen rolled her eyes.

“Shut up. Like your parents never had a stupid nickname for you.”

Matt’s smile flickered. “My dad called me Matty.”

“Does he still?”

“No. He, uh,” Matt shifted. He took off his glasses, which made him look younger. Karen could hear his heartbeat flutter as if he knew, and that vulnerability terrified him. “He died a long time ago.”

“Oh.” Karen moved closer. “I’m sorry.” She didn’t quite dare to reach out and touch his arm. They were both quiet. Rain tapped arrhythmically against the wide windows.

“Tell me more about the lights,” Matt pleaded. So Karen did.

“These green ribbons of light, waving overhead. The way they moved was a little like… like looking at the surface of the ocean from underwater? And I’ve never seen anything else the same color. Like neon, but... softer. They glowed and danced-- and the most incredible thing was how small I felt. They were up in the sky, farther away from home than I’ll ever get, and I thought I was about to fall into them. My mom held my hand, though, and my dad put his arm around both of us, and I didn’t feel like I was falling anymore.” She was silent for a moment, lost in the old comfort of the memory. “But it was so big. Just... unbelievably enormous. I forget how big the sky is, sometimes. The lights reached out overhead and faded into the northern horizon, and I remembered.” Karen looked back at Matt. She heard a distinctive swallowing noise, someone holding back tears, but he was smiling.

“Thank you, Ms. Page. No further questions.” He cleared his throat. “Your turn.”

“Do you miss it?” Karen winced at how cliche she must sound. “Seeing, I mean.”

Matt didn’t seem offended by the question.

“I’m supposed to say I don’t,” he said. _Melancholy_ , was the word Karen thought of. “But I think you understand what I’d give to see the sky one last time.”

Karen thought so, too.

 

* * *

 

 

It was raining.

That was the worst part.

Rain always played merry hell with Karen’s senses, muting some smells and amplifying others, dousing heat and muffling sound. It was like standing in a glass house during an earthquake. The world shattered.

She ran across the rooftops of Hell’s Kitchen anyway.

 _I need better clothes for this,_ she thought. Water squelched in the cheap soles of her borrowed sneakers. Matt’s shirt didn’t hold up against the rain any better than Foggy’s had. _Am I planning on making a habit of it?_ she wondered in response to herself.

She had pretended to yawn not long after her and Matt's question-answer session, claiming exhaustion. Luckily, that wasn’t a lie.

Waiting until she heard Matt’s breathing and heart slow down, she had sneaked out. Karen hoped he wouldn’t wake up before she returned.

She had glanced back, once, standing halfway out the door, and watched the pulsing light from the billboard slide across Matt’s face. It could have been the unforgiving colors washing him out, but Karen saw that, even asleep, he looked like he had a heavy burden weighing him down.

 _He’s been so kind to me already. I won’t add to that weight_ , Karen promised silently as she slipped out the door. _This is my mess to fix._

Finally away from the piercing rain, Karen heard the lone heartbeat in her apartment before she was even on the same floor. Standing in the hallway just outside of her home, it was impossible to miss.

“I’ll buy him a new one,” she muttered, tearing a long strip off the bottom of Matt’s shirt and tying it over the top half of her face. Karen allowed herself a small smile, remembering other times she’d fought with her eyes closed.

She pushed her hair up under the makeshift mask and kicked the door open. There was no point in being subtle.

The man was hiding in her bedroom. She made a beeline for him and they met in the doorway, where Karen hit him with a roundhouse kick. He grunted in surprise and pain before lashing out.

She moved as fast as she could, but her minor element of surprise wasn’t enough to stop the right hook that caught her in the side. She stumbled back, which earned her a fist to the jaw. She used that momentum to spin around and sweep a leg out. The man jumped over it.

He shoved her down. Karen rocked on her back and pushed off the floor, slamming her feet into his sternum. He fell back against the wall, and Karen succeeded in knocking his feet out from under him this time.

She scrambled up from the ground, but the hand that closed around her ankle pulled her back down again. Karen shouted in pain as the man threw her bodily into her coffee table, then the wall, then the floor.

There was a moment, tense and spinning, that the man took to rest from his own injuries. He assumed the fight was over. He thought he could afford a moment to breathe.

Karen coughed as the wind came back to her lungs. She had been right about one thing; the carpet still reeked of Daniel’s blood. She remembered him, how kind he was.

She remembered how he had died, right here, because of her.

Karen rolled to her feet and fought.

She fought for Daniel. She fought for herself. She fought for the kind lawyers who had come for her out of the blue. She fought for the people who hadn’t been so lucky. She fought for everyone whose blood had been spilled in the name of Union Allied’s corruption. The irony that she was spilling more blood in order to do that wasn’t lost on her; it was just irrelevant. She fought with every scrap of strength left in her.

In the end, it wasn’t a satisfying victory. It probably wouldn’t have been a victory at all, if she hadn’t thrown the man out the window.

She heard a clang when he hit the fire escape on the way down, and then a splash, a thump, and a groan. She was relieved he was still alive, but only under a layer of worry. He might be able to identify her. She checked that her mask was still in place. She pulled it up to see that the lights had stayed off.

Karen snatched the flash drive out of the vent and was gone before the man down in the alley could pull himself to his feet.

 

When Karen got back to Matt’s apartment, she did three things: she took a long, hot shower, scrubbing at her rain-soaked skin until it was red and raw; she sat in Matt’s darkened bedroom, turning the little plastic drive over and over in her hands; then, she spent the rest of the night working out a plan.

It was ridiculous. It would never work. It was the only way her sleep-starved brain could think of to pull any of this off, and it was so impossible she had to laugh.

Karen sat on Matt’s bed, listening to his breathing from the living room, and laughed. She drank coffee at his kitchen table in the morning and stifled a snort.

Matt walked her to her apartment, for a change of clothes, before they headed out to meet with Foggy. She intended to feign surprise at the state of her living room, but it turned out she didn’t need to; in the daylight, the broken window and splintered coffee table looked worse than she remembered. There was more blood than she expected, too. She was reasonably certain all of it was the man’s.

“No, no, no,” Karen said, pretending to search the empty vent. She forced as much of her brewing anxiety into her voice as possible. “Someone stole it.”

“Stole what?” Matt asked, worried.

“A copy of the pension file.”

 

As she dug her black running hoodie from the back of the closet and stuffed it into her purse, she laughed so hard she couldn’t tell when it turned into crying.

 

* * *

 

 

“Karen,” Foggy’s face filled with concern when Karen and Matt came into the office. “Are you okay? You’re kind of limping.”

“I’m just achey,” she said with a tight smile. “Almost getting strangled will do that to you. So,” she clapped her hands, overly chipper. “Let’s get down to business.”

“Right.” Matt sat at the table where they had recorded Karen’s terrified testimonial the night before. “So you said there was a copy of the pension file? And you had it?”

Karen nodded. “But someone must have broken into my apartment last night. The window is broken, it looks like there was a fight…”

“You guys called the police, right?” Foggy asked.

“Of course,” Matt said.

“This is great!” said Foggy. Karen and Matt each raised an eyebrow at him. “I mean, this is more evidence on our side. First someone tries to kill Karen in prison, then they trash her apartment?”

“If we can prove who’s doing all this...” The gears turning in Matt’s head were practically audible.

“We can sue the everloving shit out of them,” Foggy finished proudly.

“And clear Karen’s name,” Matt reminded him with a smile.

This was the cue she had been waiting for. The reminder that this, all of it, was for her sent a sick swooping through her gut. She was a burden and a danger, but it was time to make that right.

Karen stood.

“I’m going to run to the ladies’ room. I, uh, don’t feel well.”

“Are you in pain?” Foggy pushed his own chair back. “Is it because of, you know.” He gestured to his throat.

“No, no, I’ll be fine. I just--” Karen waved vaguely and hurried out of the office. She half-ran to the bathroom down the hallway and locked herself in a stall.

Her hands shook as she changed into the athletic gear she hadn’t worn in months. She tied a black cloth around her face, the same way she had tied the strip of Matt’s shirt over her eyes the night before. She pulled the hood up, covering her long hair, and climbed out the bathroom window. The opposite wall was sheer brick. There was no view from the street on this side of the building.

Foggy and Matt’s voices rumbled through the walls. They were still discussing how deep down the rabbit hole they could follow the forces trying to kill Karen.

“But we don’t have the file,” Matt sighed. “That would be the piece that ties it all together.”

Karen laughed her first non-hysterical laugh of the day. Her timing could not have been more perfect.

She jumped from one fire escape to the other, swinging from ladders like a trapeze artist. The corner of the building was tricky, but bouncing off the side of the one next door brought her around to the front.

Karen, clad in all black, no skin visible but the bottom of her face, landed just outside the window that looked in on Nelson and Murdock, Attorneys-at-Law. She tapped her knuckles against the glass.

“What the hell--” Foggy pulled the blinds up and reeled back in shock. “Jesus!”

Karen knocked again, miming opening the latch. Foggy was trying furiously to describe the masked woman standing outside their fourth-story window to Matt.

“Let her in,” Matt said. Foggy looked back and forth between the two as if unsure which one was crazier. “Or I’ll do it, and I’ve never opened these windows before. I could fall out, Foggy. Do you really want that?”

Foggy ran a beleaguered hand through his hair at the obvious ploy. “Fine, but I’m getting my baseball bat. At least Karen isn’t here to see this.”

The window swung open on a fearless Matt and defensive Foggy.

“I won’t hurt you,” Karen said in the best disguised voice she could muster. She had practiced in the shower last night, and it was pretty good, if she did say so herself. “I just thought you might be interested in this.” She pulled the flash drive out of her pocket and tossed it to Foggy. He dropped his bat in the scramble to catch it.

“No way,” Foggy stared at the drive suspiciously. “Are you the one who broke into Karen’s apartment?”

“No,” Karen growled. “I fought the man who did.” She crouched on the window ledge, playing up her heightened balance as much as possible. _No similarities to clumsy, limping Karen Page to be found here, no sir._ “A word of advice? You can’t trust the police with that. You can’t trust anyone.” She turned without warning and leapt from her perch.

Even after taking a shortcut over the roof, it was still a mad dash to get back to the bathroom with enough time to change her clothes and return to the office without arousing suspicion.

“So we tell _everyone_ ,” Matt said excitedly as Karen wrapped a hand around the doorframe.

“Did you see her?” she demanded, a little winded. “The woman in the mask. She was leaping off fire escapes and… and--”

“Boy, did we.” Foggy held the flash drive up to the light in something like awe.

“Oh, my god,” Karen stepped toward him. “Is that my file? Matt!” She grabbed Matt’s arm. “That’s my file! The one that was stolen. How--?”

“The woman in the mask,” Matt answered slowly. He his brow was furrowed, but he didn’t pull away from Karen. “She saved it, apparently. She said we can’t trust the police, but I think I know what we _can_ do with it.”

 

* * *

 

 

The newspaper headlines the next day blared the scandal at Union Allied Construction. Karen made a celebratory lasagna and was casually hired as Matt and Foggy’s secretary.

Squeezed around a shitty card table, in an even shittier office, with two lawyers, Karen had to admit this was definitely not the situation her grandmother had intended when she passed on the secret recipe. It was supposedly meant for her “future husband,” and no one else. But those two lawyers happened to be the kindest people Karen had ever met, so she hoped grandma would forgive her.

The three ate and talked and laughed until long after the sun went down. Karen couldn’t remember the last time she smiled so much that her cheeks hurt.

“Karen,” Matt murmured as he helped her clean up after. “I don’t think this is over.”

“What?” The fork in Karen’s hand clattered against the serving dish.

“I’ve been looking into the corruption in this city for a while. There are terrible things happening in Hell’s Kitchen every night.” Matt licked his lips and leaned in closer. His tone was urgent. “Human trafficking, drugs, gangs… I think what you found is only a piece of a much bigger puzzle.”

Karen forced herself to breathe. “How do you know?”

“Someone tried to frame you, then kill you in police custody, all for one file. This goes beyond a single man running a single company. It’s deeper than that. Evil things have taken root here.”

“And you think we should keep digging.” It wasn’t a question.

“Don’t you?”

“What does Foggy think?” she asked, avoiding giving a straight answer.

“He doesn’t like the idea of me waltzing into danger.” Matt followed Karen to the sink. “I’ll dry, if you don’t mind.” Her fingers brushed against the soft skin of Matt’s hand as she handed him soapy dishes.

“He’s probably right,” Karen said. There was a stubborn piece of cheese in the tines of one fork. She scrubbed at it, grateful for something to do with her hands.

“So you agree with him.”

“It sounds dangerous," Karen conceded. "That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.” She handed the fork off and set about tackling the serving dish. “You’re a lawyer, right? Isn’t it literally your job to stick your nose in things people want to keep you out of?”

The laugh lines at the corners of Matt’s eyes peeked out from behind his glasses when he smiled.

“I think you’re going to be a valuable asset to Nelson and Murdock.”

Karen lifted a dirty glass in mock toast.

“Here’s hoping.”

 

* * *

 

 

After that, Karen fully intended to shove the mask into the darkest corner of her wardrobe and forget all about it.

That was before Daniel’s blood wouldn’t come out of her carpet.

She stared at the wine-red stain almost constantly when she was at home, which she made sure was as little as possible. After days of using every trick her mother had taught her for getting blood out of cloth -- _hard eyes but soft hands dabbing at Karen’s bleeding nose, “this isn’t the sweet little girl I raised”_ \-- she gave up. And although she knew it had to be only in her head, Karen was convinced she could still smell a faint, metallic whiff coming from her living room.

She dreamt of blood coating the walls like paint. She dreamt of demons in police uniforms stabbing Matt and Foggy while she watched. She dreamt of an angel, chained to the ground and screaming in helplessness.

She woke up, paralyzed. The pounding of her heart almost drowned out distant, screaming sirens.

Almost, but not quite.

 _“Evil things have taken root here.”_ Matt’s words echoed in her head to the rhythm of the city’s wailing heartbeat. She heard his urgency, and she remembered the quiet amazement with which he talked about The Woman in The Mask. Alarms and the screeching static of a police scanner splintered in her ears with accusation.

And, after all, wouldn’t it be suspicious if this daring woman only emerged with a direct link to Karen Page? Who would think twice about Nelson and Murdock if they were just one case of mysterious help from this masked woman out of many?

Karen put the mask back on.

 _If I’m going to play the hero,_ she thought as her knuckles split open on a would-be mugger’s face, _I might as well make it convincing._

 

Karen quickly fell into a routine. She went to work, pretended to be normal around Matt and Foggy, went home, tried to pretend she couldn’t smell blood, jumped out her recently-fixed window to pick a fight, and staggered back to bed, too exhausted to think about the dark stain in her living room.

Rinse and repeat.

Two cracked ribs from a Russian mobster later, she had no choice but to stay off the streets for a couple of nights. Her apartment was still off the table, which is how she ended up lingering late enough at the office to overhear Foggy belting out pirate drinking songs.

“You do know I’m still here, right?” she called out, followed by a crash, and that was all it took to start them down the road to getting more thoroughly inebriated than Karen had been since the first time she played beer pong.

“I’m awesome at beer pong, did you know that?” she slurred. Foggy swallowed his glassful of whatever it was that had the eel in it and grimaced.

“I didn’t, weirdly enough. That’s funny, you’d think that would be the kind of thing we’d ask before hiring you.”

Karen’s head fell to the sticky counter of Josie’s. She stared up at Foggy with a grin.

“I’ve never worked anywhere before where beer pong is part of the application process.”

“You haven’t worked anywhere as awesome as our firm, obviously.” Foggy frowned slightly. “Hey, so, I never had the guts to ask this sober, but what’s with all the scars?”

Karen thought she might, for once, be just drunk enough for this conversation.

“At first, when we met,” Foggy continued, “I thought they were just on your neck, but there’s the big one up by your hairline and your eye, and on your arms and stuff. Did… Did someone hurt you?”

Karen blinked slowly. The wooden counter was starting to spin under her cheek.

“Accident.” She finally managed to find the word, hiding in the back of her brain. “When I was twelve. Should have died, apparently. I didn’t, though.” It seemed important to make sure Foggy understood that. “But I wore turtlenecks for most of high school, so for a while I thought I might as well have.”

“Huh. You and Matt should start a club,” he said. “Accidents when you were kids. He got blinded, you got disfigured, it’ll be great. You can make t-shirts.”

Karen giggled helplessly. It could have been relief, the fact that he was fine with it, that he wasn’t going to pry. Or else it was something uniquely _Foggy._ Either way, the idea of t-shirts, in that moment, was hilarious.

“Foggy,” she grabbed at the shoulder of his jacket, wanting him closer. He was the only thing in this bar that didn’t smell like hepatitis waiting to happen. “Thanks for--” Karen hiccupped. “Thanks for this.”

“Hey, our night’s not over yet! Matt’s not even here.” He patted through his pockets until he managed to fish out his phone. Foggy squinted at the screen. “Speak of the devil... He keeps sending me texts about mob activity and a, uh -- heh, I love it when his voice-to-text thing messes up -- possible human trafficking cover up.” A chill ran down Karen’s spine. She lifted her head as Foggy kept speaking. “But look, it says ‘human traffic and cover up,’ isn’t that great? Anyway, _I_ told him, buddy, _this_ is why you’re missing out on Karen losing her Josie’s Bar virginity? You’re gonna wear out your fingers with all this research. Like,” Foggy suddenly sounded very, very tired. “He’s not going to singlehandedly stop the Russian mob with nothing but a laptop and a go-get-’em attitude.”

Karen unconsciously put a hand over her cracked ribs.

“Yeah.” She knocked back the last of her own drink. “Maybe we should see how he’s doing?”

“I like the way you think.” He linked arms with Karen. “Josie! Put that on my tab.”

Josie jerked her thumb at the ‘NO TABS’ sign three feet in front of Foggy.

“Thanks.” He winked. “You’re a doll.”

 

* * *

 

 

Matt, as it turned out, was asleep when Karen and Foggy started pounding on his door.

“...And we are filled with mighty eel-- oh, hey buddy,” Foggy took a step back when the door flew open and Matt’s ridiculous bedhead poked out. Karen laughed a laugh that was throaty and so obviously drunk.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She waved a hand in front of her face as if brushing away the bubbling giggles. “It’s just,” she poked Foggy in the side, “he looks like an angry porcupine.” They both dissolved into snorting laughter.

“What time is it?” Matt asked wearily. Foggy checked his watch.

“Half past time to go to the fishmarket, Murdock!”

“I’ll pass,” he said. “Karen, do you need a place to sleep this off?”

“Noooo.” She shook her head and stumbled forward, leaning against Matt’s door frame. His collarbone peeked out from under the baggy t-shirt he wore to bed. Karen’s face had somehow ended up very, very close to it. “I’m fine! I’m gonna buy a bluefin with Foggy.”

Matt finally cracked a smile.

“Don’t let them swindle you out of your money,” he warned. “Those fishermen are vicious.”

Foggy gave an inexplicable military salute. “I’ll be on the lookout. See you in the morning, Matt!”

“It _is_ morning, Foggy!” Matt called after them, but Karen and Foggy were already waltzing, arm in arm, into the spreading dawn.

 

* * *

 

 

Karen woke up, surprisingly comfortable, with a handful of soft hair. Her eyes blinked open. She stared at the well-conditioned, blond hair poking out from between her fingers for a long few moments. She was sure it wasn’t her own. Mostly sure, anyway. The world felt strangely sideways, a sun-dappled surrealist painting.

A quiet groan came from her left.

“Are we dead?” Foggy rasped. Karen let go of her hold on Foggy’s scalp and rolled off his chest. She knew the buttons of his shirt must have left indents in her cheek. As soon as she moved away, she quietly missed his living warmth.

“I don’t think so,” she sighed. “What do you think Matt would do if we both called in sick today?”

“Not a goddamn thing.” Foggy buried his face in a pillow. “I’m a senior partner too. _My_ name is first on the door. I have every right to grant our hardworking secretary a much-needed day off.”

Karen nodded. She dozed, letting her mind wander, before her eyes snapped open at a blurry memory.

“Oh my god, Foggy.” She rolled over again and slapped him on the shoulder. “Matt! Do you remember going to his apartment last-- wait, no, this morning?”

Foggy said nothing for a few long seconds.

“Well, fuck.” He heaved a sigh. “This is going to be embarrassing.”

 

Karen was grateful for a lot of things in her life. Narrowly escaping death multiple times in the last week made up a significant portion of that list, of course. What came in at the top spot, however, was the fact that Foggy had a stockpile of the free toothbrushes he’d gotten from his dentist’s office, still in their plastic packaging.

“Thanks, again,” she mumbled around a mouthful of toothpaste. She spat it out in Foggy’s kitchen sink. The sink in the bathroom, they had discovered, was splattered with vomit. “I don’t think I could have made it home with my mouth tasting like that.”

The vomit probably wasn’t Foggy’s.

“No problem.” Foggy was still blinking like a mole in the sunlight. “Do you want coffee? Because I think I might literally die right here and now if I don’t get some caffeine.”

“Sure. Where do you keep your grounds?” Karen could smell the bag in the second cupboard to the right, but it would be a little creepy if she let him know that.

She could also smell the fresh bluefin tuna taking up half of Foggy’s refrigerator, but she decided to leave that surprise for him.

“Nuh-uh, nope,” he said, shaking his head and shooing Karen away from the kitchen. “The office is one thing, but I draw the line at you getting your cute, mousey little hands all over my personal coffee-making… things.”

“Is the coffee I make really that bad?”

He gave her a sympathetic glance. “Karen, listen. I think you’re lovely and perfect in a million ways, but your coffee tastes like the shit they scrape off the floor of hell. Now go drink some water and wait on the couch.”

Karen made an offended sound and swatted Foggy’s arm, but she smiled.

A few minutes later, she put her chin in her hands as innocently as possible and looked at Foggy’s back, stooped a little while he fiddled with the sugar bowl.

“Do you really think my hands are cute?”

The bowl spilled across the countertop with a clatter. Karen could sense the heat coming from Foggy’s reddening cheeks, even through the curtain of hair he pulled over his face.

“I mean, yeah, you have a lot of-- Your features are very… It’s not just your hands. Not that it’s _everything_ but your hands, just... most things? I mean, not that I’ve been, you know, _looking_ at things that aren’t your hands. Your face! For example. It’s a nice one, as far as faces go-- stop laughing at me!”

 

“So,” Foggy said as he took Karen’s empty coffee cup to the sink along with his own. Karen felt considerably more human than when she had woken up, and, if the fact that he had been humming ‘Bootylicious’ for the past few minutes was anything to go by, Foggy did too. “I was thinking.”

“Uh oh,” Karen joked.

“What are you going to do tonight? When you go home, I mean.” Foggy’s heartbeat was steady and strong.

Karen shrugged. “Try baking soda again? Pour bleach all over my living room?” Her ribs twinged with pain at the thought of finding another scumbag to take her issues out on.

“What if you just stayed here?” Foggy asked. There was no nervousness in his heart or in his voice. He wasn’t afraid of the idea that she would say no. “I have a fold-out sofa and no bloodstains, so that’s a plus.” He was actually trying to sell Karen on his fold-out sofa. “And you wouldn’t even have to pay me rent! I’m your boss and everything, so I’d basically be paying myself. Let’s just cut out the middleman, you know?”

Unbidden tears, in response to unbidden kindness, prickled in Karen’s eyes.

“Foggy…” She couldn’t keep the wetness out of the word.

“Hey,” Foggy rushed from the kitchen and crouched in front of her chair. His eyes were perfectly level with hers. “You don’t have to. I’m not asking, okay? I’m offering. Feel free to turn me down.”

No ulterior motives. No pressure.

“No, I--” She threw herself forward and wrapped her arms around him. His hands flew out in surprise, hovering around Karen’s shoulders. Karen kneeled in Foggy’s living room, hungover, clinging to him in a mimicry of the position in which they had woken to find themselves. “I’d like that.”

“Great!” Foggy put his hands decisively between the wings of Karen’s shoulder blades and hugged her back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As might already be apparent, this fic more or less follows the canon timeline. Fisk and co. are up to the same things, Claire and Ben will show up soon as their wonderful selves, etc. The only real difference here is that Karen has powers and Matt does not.  
> Also, OT3 things will happen, but I choose to believe that is within the realm of canon possibility and nothing you say will convince me otherwise.


	2. Chapter 2

Karen met Ben Urich the day after she put the mask back on.

Her ribs had healed, but that wasn’t why she returned to the streets. While Foggy’s apartment didn’t serve as a constant motivator to find a violent distraction the way her own did, she was learning that the things Matt said about Hell’s Kitchen ran deeper than either of them thought.

She had seen drug and human trafficking in person. She heard screams and gunshots echoing across the city, night after night. Too many of those crimes, which Karen was not always in time to stop, were committed in the presence of the same few heartbeats. Far too many to be mere coincidence.

Karen was on the verge of getting names. She had been beating information out of Russians, crooked cops, and a handful of junkies for weeks. They were, all of them, more afraid of the man behind the scenes than they were of her, but that wouldn’t last. Karen would make sure of it.

Likewise, Matt’s obsession with following every thread in the city’s web of blood and money had only gotten worse. He talked incessantly about shutting it down from inside the law, about how _“this is why we became lawyers, Foggy. Helping people.”_ He was up all night, unreachable, more often than Karen was. He worked like a man possessed.

Theoretically, Karen must have known that Matt wasn’t working alone. The thought didn’t consciously occur to her, however, until the day a grizzled reporter strode into the office.

“I’m looking for the Murdock half of Nelson and Murdock,” he said, in response to Karen’s most welcoming receptionist smile. He seemed gnarled and wise, like an unmovable tree with more roots in the ground than branches in the sky. There was a look in his eye that said he had seen both better and worse days.

“He’s um--” She glanced uncertainly toward the conference room. “He’s actually meeting with a client right now?” This particular problem had never come up before.

“You sound surprised,” the man noted with amusement. “That not happen often?”

“Our… Our firm is still very young--” Karen stammered. The man chuckled, deep and wholesome.

“It’s fine, I’ll wait. Tell him Ben is here to see him, if you would. Ben Urich.”

“Of course. Can I get you some coffee or tea, Mr. Urich?”

“Tea sounds fine.” He smiled politely. “I’ve been warned about the coffee here.”

So he and Matt were already acquainted.

“Tea it is.” When she handed him the steaming cup a few minutes later, he smiled again. His wide glasses gave his eyes an owl-like, knowing appearance. He looked at her keenly.

“You must be Karen,” he said after a slow sip of his tea. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“From Matt?” Karen assumed.

“Hm,” Ben made a noncommittal noise. “Sounds like you’ve been in the middle of a lot of trouble lately. How are you holding up?”

“I’m…I’m fine. Thank you.” She listened to Matt’s careful interpreting between Foggy and Elena from the other side of the wall. Karen’s Spanish wasn’t the best, but it sounded like they might be wrapping up.

“Are you sure?” Ben’s penetrating stare did not waver. “You seem like a girl who’s pretty good at keeping secrets.”

Karen’s fingernails dug into her palms.

“We all have secrets, Mr. Urich.” Karen refused to break eye contact with him. “Things we keep for ourselves.” The moment stretched on, silent. Karen heard Matt and Foggy pushing their chairs back, shaking Elena’s hand and saying goodbye.

Ben broke the tension with another gravelly chuckle. His stony face relaxed.

“You’re right about that, Ms. Page,” he said as the door to the conference room opened.

“Matt,” Karen called him over. “You have a visitor. Ben Urich?”

“I have news,” Ben said as he moved closer to Matt.

“You’re a reporter, Ben,” Matt said with a pleased smile. “That’s your job. Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Give me a minute, and I just might,” Ben replied cryptically.

Karen tried to catch Foggy’s eye, hoping to find out from him what was going on. Foggy walked Elena to the door and pointedly didn’t look toward Matt, Ben, or Karen.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Karen.” Ben shook her hand on the way out, Matt’s grip loose around his elbow. Ben’s palms were soft and his knuckles were knobby. The deep lines of his face seemed gentler than before.

“Of course.” Karen wasn’t sure if she should force a smile. He would see right through it.

“See you, Matt. Ben,” Foggy mumbled, acknowledging his presence at last. “Keep him safe. Don’t get yourself killed.”

“I haven’t yet,” Ben said. The implied _“and I’ve been at this a lot longer than you”_ tacked itself onto the end.

 

The second time Ben Urich walked into Nelson and Murdock, Karen was alone.

“Matt’s not here right now,” she said apologetically. “He and Foggy should be back in a couple of hours. They’re meeting a prospective client.”

Ben shook his head.

“I’m not here for him. I’m here to see you.”

Karen tensed, but the sound of Ben’s heart was as slow and calming as a metronome.

“What-- what can I help you with?”

Ben held one palm open in an inviting gesture. “Come get coffee with me.”

 

They got coffee. Not only that day, but once or twice a week for the next month. Mostly, at first, they talked about Matt and Ben’s work-- and, to a lesser extent, Karen’s. Ben brought up the mysterious Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, a name Karen found a little uncomfortable, on occasion. He thought the woman in the mask was doing more good than harm. Karen said she didn’t have much of an opinion on the whole vigilante thing.

As their informal meetings went on, they talked less as co-conspirators in a fight for justice and more as friends.

Something still bothered Karen, though.

She walked into the tiny, street corner park where they met on sunny days with determination in her step.

“Why did you reach out to me?” she asked. Ben looked up at her from the bench they always used, half-hidden behind a shrubbery.

“What?” He adjusted his glasses. Karen pulled at her bottom lip with her teeth and sat down, grabbing the warm coffee cup Ben brought for her.

“Why did we start doing this? I’m… I’m nobody.” She shook her head. “You’re busy. With your actual job, plus running around with Matt digging up the secrets of the rich and powerful, not to mention-- I mean, you shouldn’t have _time_ for me.”

“That’s true, I probably shouldn’t.” Ben looked resigned. “Karen, I consider you a friend--”

“Don’t. Lie. To me,” she gritted out between her teeth. His heartbeat had quickened in pace, and his breathing changed as he readied himself to make up a soothing story. Karen was sick of being lied to. She was sick of the agendas of hidden men.

“That part’s the truth. You’re a friend, Karen. You’re a good kid, tough as nails. I like you. But yes,” he spoke frankly, honest and to the point. “I had another reason for getting to know you. I did my homework, after your co-worker died, and I know if--”

“Daniel,” Karen interrupted. It was important that Ben, of all people, say his name. “His name was Daniel.”

“Of course.” There was nervousness in Ben’s heart. It wasn’t a lie, but he didn’t know how she would react to what he said next. “If Daniel’s blood _were_ on your hands… I’m not saying it is, but.” He fixed his wise eyes on her in a level stare. “It wouldn’t be the first time. Am I right?”

Blood rushed in Karen’s ears. Of course. Of course this would come back to haunt her, even so far away.

“Those records are sealed,” she whispered.

“The online archive of Fagan Corners’ local newspaper isn’t.” Ben looked at her with sympathy. “Neither are Vermont death certificates. It wasn’t hard to dig this up. You didn’t exactly do much in the way of burying your past.” 

"Why?” The word was a plea. For what, Karen wasn’t sure. “Why did you bother investigating me?”

“Like I said the first time we met, you’ve been making a big splash lately.” Ben sipped his coffee.

“That wouldn’t motivate you to do all _this_.” She made a gesture that encompassed the half-hidden bench, the coffee in her hand, their friendship, holistically.

“Matt trusts you." Ben said simply. "He’s not an overly trusting person, I admit.” He chuckled at the understatement. “But he’s reckless. Relies too much on his own judgement.”

“So you’re doing this for Matt?”

“I’m doing this to keep the story safe. And yeah, that involves protecting the man helping me get this scoop in the first place.” He shrugged. “And I won’t deny I was curious. You had an interesting life back in Vermont.”

“ _Interesting_ isn’t exactly the word I’d use,” Karen said bitterly.

“What word would you use?” In another world, Karen thought, Ben might have been a therapist instead of a reporter. Maybe that was what made him so good at his job. He got people to talk, and he cared about what they said.

Karen considered for a long time. She watched a young woman on the sidewalk, pulling her daughter along by the hand; she heard the little girl’s high, prattling voice talk about all the pretty colors butterflies can be.

“Complicated,” she said at last.

“That’s everyone’s life, Karen.”

They drank their coffee in as much silence as New York City can give.

“Do you want to tell me about him?” Ben asked.

"His name was Lester. I guess you already knew that.” The details came back to her coldly. It felt like a story that had happened to someone else. “He was wanted for arson, but you probably knew that too.”

“That’s not what I meant. I know the facts already. What I don’t know is how it affected you.”

_“That’s_ what you want to talk about?” Karen’s head whipped around to stare at him. “You drudge up the worst thing in my past you can possibly find to make sure I’m not going to... to compromise your and Matt’s quest for the truth, and all you have to ask about is how it made me _feel?”_

“That’s what I’m more interested in right now,” Ben said. He was calm. “If you don’t want to talk, I won’t press you.” 

“Good.” Karen nodded, once. “I… I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to talk about it. It’s not something I try to even think about anymore.” 

“We all have our secrets,” Ben said as his mouth curved up in a smile. “Things we keep for ourselves.” 

Karen nodded, again. 

 

* * *

 

Since coming to New York, Karen had begun to neglect certain facets of her old life. 

Some of these were for the best; not returning Nate Hackett’s phone calls, for example, was better for her blood pressure than a hot cup of tea and a bath. But others, like rigorous martial arts training, didn’t merely belong back in Fagan Corners. The startling frequency of her recent near-death experiences taught Karen a valuable lesson: some habits shouldn’t be lost. 

She had stumbled upon Fogwell’s Gym by accident, back when she worked for Union Allied. It had been a bad day, sensory-wise. A loudly droning bus nearly knocked her off her feet, and she must have taken a wrong turn or three. Now, though, Karen found the gym on purpose. She had come a few times over the past two weeks, late in the evening so no one would be there to question the young woman pounding into punching bags three times her size. 

The door was unlocked, as usual, but the lights were off. It was a windy day outside; the howling air pulled the edges of the city's sounds ragged and tumbled them every which way. Inside the cement and concrete gym was a haven of stillness. Quiet echos told Karen that at least one other person was still here. 

Gloveless fists made muffled thuds against the padded bag. The stranger’s heartbeat, and his voice as he let out quiet exhales at each moment of impact, seemed familiar. 

Karen rounded the corner to see his bare, muscled back, rippling with movement. Grey sweatpants hung low on his hips, accentuating the curve of a shape that-- well, that Karen may have noticed from time to time. 

“Matt?” 

Matt froze, mid-swing, and turned toward the sound of her voice. 

“Karen?” His hands fell to his sides. “What are you doing here?” 

“Nothing. I mean.” She gave a vague shrug that he couldn’t see. “I… I didn’t expect you to be here.” 

Matt seemed confused, but not angry. He pulled at the boxing tape on his hands. 

“Likewise,” he said. “How did you even find this place?” One dark eyebrow arched up to almost touch a few dangling strands of his hair. “It’s not exactly a New York hotspot.” 

“Oh, I was just looking for gyms in the area that weren’t too hard to get to,” Karen said. “That I could drop by around work, you know? And I heard about Fogwell’s, that it was…” _secluded and the owners don’t ask too many questions,_ the thought went unfinished. “How long have you been coming to this gym?” Karen asked instead. 

Matt’s mouth curled in a wry smile. 

“A long time.” He pointed vaguely to Karen’s left. “There should be a poster over there somewhere. Last time I asked, it was still up.” 

She looked, and there it was, in fading red block letters: MURDOCK VS. CREEL. 

“My dad,” Matt explained. 

“Wow,” Karen breathed. She touched the paper; it was dry and old, crumbling under her fingers. “You know, when you said you loved this city, I don’t think I really understood what you meant.” 

Matt smiled softly but a little helplessly, like he wasn’t sure what to do with his hands now that he was done unwrapping the tape. 

“I didn’t know you boxed,” he said at last. 

“I’m, uh-- I’m trying to pick it back up.” 

“We should spar sometime.” He seemed almost delighted by the idea. His discomfort was fading, slowly. 

Karen huffed a laugh. “No, I don’t think so.” 

“Why?” Matt grinned. “Afraid of losing to a blind guy?” 

“Of course. Foggy would never let me live it down.” 

There were only a few times Karen could remember seeing Matt really, honestly laugh. His head fell back when he did, and he bared the pale lines of his throat with more vulnerability than anyone in Hell’s Kitchen ought to do. 

If he only knew her for a wolf, he might not be so quick to trust her with his rushing blood. 

Those shaking shoulders, muscled as they were, wouldn’t be so hard to wrench back and pin down. They were alone in this gym, after all: no one to hear him laugh, and no one to hear him die. The thought of this, that she could kill a man who had been so kind to her if the mood happened to strike, made Karen feel as dark, as cold, as empty as the manholes Foggy always joked about Matt falling down. 

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” he said. “I was just going.” 

Even if Karen couldn’t hear the lie in his heartbeat, she would have been able to smell it. The sweat on his skin was fresh, a gentle sheen with no real substance yet. 

“Were you?” she asked. Matt nodded. “Do you want me to walk you--” 

“Don’t worry about it.” He shouldered his bag, felt around for his cane, and made his way tap-tap-tapping toward the door. “I know my way out.” 

Karen closed her eyes. 

“Are you sure?” 

She knew a dangerous question when she asked one. 

Matt’s slowing heartbeat picked up again, reminding Karen of a deer scenting the wind a half-second before it fled. 

“As sure as I can be. Then again...” And she could hear the cracks in his voice where humor clawed through. “Could just be a blind man’s bluff.” 

 

* * *

 

The coffee maker in the law offices of Nelson and Murdock was from hell. And probably possessed. Karen felt this way about the entire crumbling building sometimes, but _especially_ that fucking coffee maker. 

It gurgled, it dripped, and it hissed like an angry cat, and those were on its good days. Making coffee had always been Karen’s least favorite part about being a secretary; the bitterness coated her tongue before the grounds even touched water, never mind the smell. But this one, _this_ coffee maker, probably dropped on Foggy’s doorstep directly from Satan’s own asshole, was the worst she had ever encountered. When it was feeling particularly testy, it had a tendency to blink its lights with no rhyme or reason, overheat, and leak its half-brewed liquid across the countertop and onto the floor. Karen could read a book by feeling the  minuscule indents made by ink on the page, but even her fingers couldn’t find where that damn leak was coming from. 

The coffee maker bubbled mockingly. The mice in the walls, and whatever other creatures crawled there, sounded like they were hosting a rave. It was a hot, sunny day, and the open window let the smell of garbage and the collective body odor of eight million people waft through the office. Karen’s skin felt too tight. She wanted to pull her hair out. She wanted to break the coffee pot and the wall and the whole damned city. 

“Karen?” Foggy tentatively put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you doing okay?” The cool scent of his almost-scentless lotion brought her a step back from the edge, but it wasn’t enough. 

“No, I’m not.” She slapped a hand on the counter hard enough to rattle the dishes in the cupboard. “I hate this piece of shit coffee maker.” 

“Woah, hey,” Foggy said. He flinched when she hit the counter, but his hand stayed steady on her shoulder. “I know, that thing’s got a mind of its own and is probably punishment for our unpardonable sins. But Karen.” He gently turned her toward him. His bright eyes were always so kind when they looked into hers. “It’s not the end of the world.” 

If anything, his kindness made the whole thing worse. He, of all people, didn’t deserve to deal with her bullshit. 

“I, um -- just need to sit down for a minute,” she said. Foggy’s hand hovered in the air for a second after she pulled away. 

Karen fled to her desk, taking small pride in the act of forcefully shutting the window on her way there. 

She dug through her purse until she felt the cold metal ring of her favorite fidget toy. The noise faded to static as Karen clicked the joints back and forth in her hand. 

_“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,”_ she mouthed to herself, matching the rhythm of the clicking. She knew Foggy had followed her around the wall. He was probably watching her right now, but she didn’t care. 

“What’s that?” he asked gently, once Karen’s breathing slowed down. 

“It’s, um.” She held the toy out for him to see. “I get overwhelmed sometimes. It’s for fidgeting, you know? It helps me focus.” 

“Oh, I’ve seen these!” He smiled delightedly. “It’s a stim toy, right? One of the other interns at L and Z had one. I actually bought him like two more because he wouldn’t stop playing with my plastic dinosaurs.” 

Karen giggled. 

“Those dinosaurs are not a joking matter, Karen.” Foggy puffed his chest out, affronted. “They were _my_ dinosaurs. Nobody touches Foggy Nelson’s dinosaurs without his say-so.” 

Karen only laughed harder. 

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go do some important work without the aid of caffeine, since the coffee maker is throwing a class-A shitfit. What a cruel world we live in, I’m telling you.” 

“Foggy?” Karen called out to him as he was about to close the door to his office. He paused and looked back to her. She gave a half-shrug and said, “Just… Sorry about the coffee.” 

It wasn’t all she wanted to say. 

Foggy nodded. 

“Me too.” 

 

* * *

 

 

Matt and Foggy liked to hang out in each other’s offices. There was nothing remarkable about that. For every afternoon Foggy spent bouncing his baseball off Matt’s desk, there was another that found Matt pacing around Foggy’s while he listened to recorded testimonies. 

What didn’t usually happen, and what caught Karen’s attention this time, was that Matt closed the door. 

The click of the handle brought Karen out of the haze of focus in which she had been doing paperwork. Another sound broke the noise of the office, so distracting it was a miracle Karen hadn’t heard it before; Matt’s heart was beating like a herd of galloping horses. 

Karen’s mind frantically sorted through every possible reason he might be in danger. The list ran the gamut all the way from “allergic reaction” to “zombie aliens.” 

She was about to call out to him, ready to kick down the door if she didn’t hear an answer, when Foggy spoke. Foggy’s own heart ticked along with the same, reliable pace as ever. His tone was casual, not the kind of thing that could usually be said about someone facing down undead invaders. 

“Hey, Matt,” Foggy greeted. “Do you know where that Jobrani file went? I think I left it on your desk.” 

“Uh, no. Sorry.” Matt’s tongue rasped across his dry lips. “I wanted to talk to you about something, though. If you have time,” he added quickly. 

Foggy snorted. “Yeah, I’m neck-deep in cases right now. What’s up?” 

“You know that night, back in our, uh, second year?” Matt said this in a rush, as if the words were leaping from his mouth. “The, uh, one we don’t talk about.” 

“Um.” There was a pause. “You mean that time I drank too much Schnapps and pissed on our neighbor’s--” 

“No, not that one. The…” Matt made a frustrated sound, low in his throat. Foggy probably couldn’t hear it, but Karen noticed. “It was in November, about two weeks after Halloween.” Silence. More heartbeat. “I kept stepping on the candy you left everywhere. It was a Friday…” Matt prompted. “We’d just had a Poverty Law test?” 

“You remember whatever this is _really_ well,” Foggy said. He was starting to sound worried. 

"Yeah.” Matt breathed an awkward laugh. “Do you seriously not know what I’m talking about?” 

“Nope. We did a lot of stupid shit in law school, man. It all kind of blurs together. Why are you bringing this up?” 

Matt sighed. 

“I want to clear the air," he explained. "We’re getting closer to the truth every day. What we’re-- what _I’m_ doing, it might start being…” 

“What? As fucking idiotic as I’ve been telling you this whole time?” 

“I just want to make sure there are no secrets between us.” There was a soft sound as Matt ran his hand across the corner of Foggy’s desk before sitting down. “Nothing un-talked about. Nothing to get in the way.” 

“Who are you, and what the hell have you done with Matt Murdock?” Foggy laughed. 

“What?” 

“Since when does the mysterious Matt want to talk about secrets? Is the world ending? Are you dying? Am _I_ dying?” 

“I’m being serious, Foggy.” 

“So am I. You’re not exactly one to overshare.” 

“You know everything about me,” Matt protested. 

“Yeah, and getting to that point was like pulling teeth.” The legs of Foggy’s chair scraped across the floor. His footsteps arced around Matt so they were face-to-face. “You’re the cagiest bastard on the planet, Murdock, but I am and always have been _aggressively_ your friend. Whatever dirty laundry you think we need to air, it won’t ruin what we have here. Not a single damn thing could do that.” 

“Promise?” 

“Promise. I’ll always be in your corner, buddy.” 

Matt’s heart finally slowed to a happy trot. Karen let the sound of it fade into the background. That worked, for the most part, until Foggy’s question: 

“So, what night were you talking about?” 

Matt’s heart rate rocketed sky high. 

“I…” He made several false starts at forming words. “Forget it. Like you said, we did a lot of stupid shit in school.” 

“Yeah, we did.” Foggy chuckled. “Remember the time with that guy-- what was his name? The jockey?” 

“Oh, god,” Matt choked. “Don’t remind me.”

They laughed, and Karen decided it was finally safe to get back to work. No extraterrestrial creatures or fights between old friends lay in wait today. 

Matt eventually wandered back to his own office, chatting with Karen on the way. 

Half an hour later, Foggy’s own heartbeat quickened so much and so abruptly that Karen nearly fell out of her chair. 

“Oh,” Foggy said in a quiet whisper, a sudden realization. “ _That_ night.”

Karen had to remind herself three separate times that it was none of her business.

 

* * *

 

Wilson Fisk. 

That was the name of the demon ripping Hell’s Kitchen apart. 

Putting a name to the monstrous figure that loomed in the dark corners of the city should have made him only human. It should have been a triumph. Instead, Karen watched the man who unmasked him take his own life rather than face Fisk’s wrath. The monster was still a monster. 

And when that monster stepped into the light, the news reporting on this shy philanthropist cleaning up the city with noble anonymity, every bruise Karen hid under clothes and layers of makeup throbbed. 

While Fisk stood at his pulpit and feigned benevolence, she was in Foggy’s living room, taut fingers clawing dents into the couch. Matt paced like a caged predator as he listened to the television. 

“He can’t do this,” Matt hissed between his teeth. 

“Looks like he just did,” Foggy said. His voice was filled with something sharper than defeat. 

Karen said nothing. She watched the broad man, bald as a cueball, speak to the unsuspecting people whose lives he would have no qualms about crushing. She wanted to look away, but some conviction in her heart wouldn’t hear of it. 

Matt trembled, exactly as he had done the night Karen was almost killed in prison. She felt the minute movement in the air. He tensed like a cornered, starving creature and threw his cane across the room with an animal cry. It hit the wall with a sharp _crack._

“Hey!” Foggy got up and gripped Matt by the shoulders, muttering soothing, if not hopeful, words. 

Karen only flinched. Every voice that had dared to speak out -- like her own, like _Daniel’s_ \-- was silenced because of Fisk. But a monster could not stay a monster if it let itself be known. Karen held onto that, desperately, and willed it to be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Karen's stim toy](https://www.etsy.com/listing/92169129/the-original-fidget-for-busy-hands?ref=related-0)
> 
>  
> 
> Karen's origin story isn't a copy of Matt's (DD!Karen and DD!Matt share very little in common besides the super senses, in fact), but I did re-purpose a couple of things from comics canon that will become clearer later on. Speaking of which, to anyone familiar with Mark Waid's Daredevil run: yes, that Nate Hackett.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So far, this fic has mostly been re-hashing the canon and vignettes, but buckle your seat belts because this is about to get Real.  
> Warning for violence and implied abuse.

The night Karen identified Elena Cardenas’ cold body, something inside her snapped. The sight of the old woman, seeming impossibly smaller in death than she had ever been in life, burned in Karen’s shrouded eyes.

She took to the streets, ready to earn the title of Devil.

The junkie who killed Elena wasn’t hard to track down. It wasn’t hard to break both his arms, either. As he whimpered on the floor, Karen clenched her fists and knew the fight wasn’t over. This was bigger than the scrawny man and his rotting teeth.

Elena’s death hadn’t been random; it had been strategic. It had been for the building. Just like everything, this all ran back to Fisk.

Toppling a man who practically owned the world had felt like an impossible task before this moment, but Karen saw that every ounce of his empire was built on the backs of people like Elena. Knocking anything at all out from under him would be worth it, no matter the price.

“I hope one of your friends is lucid enough to call an ambulance, soon,” Karen muttered, almost an afterthought, as she somersaulted out the window.

 ****  


It was a cold, late spring in New York. The wind off the river sliced through raincoats like butter, and the nights were filled with the slinking threat of frost.

Todd flexed his gloved fingers. The M16 hanging from his shoulder kept himself and the people in the warehouse protected, but it didn’t keep him warm. He resisted the urge to check his watch for the eighth time.

“Hey,” Marty, the other guard on duty, said. “Did you hear that?”

“Nope,” Todd replied, but he put his hands on the gun anyway.

There was a loud _clang_ from the other end of the alley.

“There it is again.” Marty pointed his own pistol into the dark. Todd squinted, but what little light from the yellow streetlamp leaked into the alley only made the shadows wobble in his sight.

“Probably a stray or something.” Todd had barely gotten the words out when a chunk of concrete the size of a baseball flew out of nowhere. It struck Marty’s piece with pinpoint accuracy, knocking it violently from his hands, and ricocheted upward to hit him right between the eyes.

Todd could only gape as Marty stumbled back.

“What the _fuck?”_ Marty hissed, right before another projectile got him in the temple. He careened on his feet and fell over.

Todd braced himself and put a finger over the trigger. There was another sound in the alley: a heavy thud, and running footsteps. The muzzle of his gun pointed steadily at an emerging shadow that solidified into the form of a person.

Todd let loose a stream of bullets.

The person in the alley didn’t stop moving. She dropped to a roll, leapt to the left, to the right, ran two steps up the side of a building to launch into a backflip, all with an impossible, fluid grace. She was unreal. Bullets couldn’t touch her.

When she stepped into the light, Todd stopped firing. The rifle fell to hang at his side.

There she was. The woman who put half Todd’s coworkers in the hospital. The most dangerous pain in the ass in the city. The myth Todd had only half believed in.

The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

Her mouth and chin, shrouded by the hood but still visible, twisted into a smirk.

She charged him. Todd had time to do little else but panic and clench in preparation for the impending blow.

But a blow didn’t come.

The Devil leaped into the air a few feet in front of him. One hand came down on his left shoulder as she soared _over his head_ \-- none of the stories did her justice-- and the other snagged the strap that kept the gun by his side.

Todd turned, whether to chase the weapon or the vigilante, he wasn’t sure, as the masked woman landed on her feet. She threw the gun an impressive distance and turned back to him.

Todd patted at his jacket, wishing he kept a knife on him like Marty did.

The Devil attacked him like a wildcat, all claws and twisting muscle. She didn’t stay still, not for a moment, and while Todd had always been a fighter, he wasn’t used to opponents that slipped out of his grip like darting minnows. He didn’t go down easy, but when she slid between his knees to come at him from behind, Todd’s face met concrete.

The woman in the mask rolled him onto his back. Her knee pressed into his sternum. She leaned over him, close enough that he could see an angry bruise spreading out from under her mask. There weren’t any eye holes in that mask, which simultaneously reminded Todd of a magician’s blindfold and freaked him the fuck out.

“Tell Fisk I’m coming for him,” she said in a low snarl.

“Tell him yourself.” Todd’s meaty fist slammed into the side of the Devil’s neck, sending her rolling off him and away from the blow. “Bitch.”

In the middle of the roll, she used her impossible reflexes to grab Todd’s thumb and ring finger. Her hands could have fit inside Todd’s fist with the fingers splayed flat, but they were as strong as steel as the masked Devil wrenched the digits at unnatural angles. There was a series of cracks inside his hand. Before he could even scream in pain, the woman clocked Todd across the jaw.

Through the stars exploding across his vision, Todd saw that Marty had finally gotten up. He’d crept close enough while Todd was getting the shit kicked out of him, and with a triumphant yell, he stabbed the Devil in the side.

She screamed, but something about it was chilling. Todd had heard a mountain lion scream once, when he used to camp with his grandfather in the Rockies. That scream, and this one, were feral. It was the kind of sound that would ring in his ears on sleepless nights.

The woman pulled the knife from Marty’s hand and flicked her wrist downward. The blade speared his foot with a wet _snick._

Todd looked away, focused on pulling himself to his feet. He heard thumps of fist-on-flesh and winded breathing. By the time he was upright again, the Devil was standing over the prone body of Marty, out for the count.

Todd came up behind her, but she jabbed her elbow into his gut as if she could see him just as easily with her back turned. She hooked a foot around his ankle to send him hard to the ground yet again.

Before he could blink, she had Todd’s arm up behind his back, nearly wrenching it out of the socket.

“I don’t fucking like being called a bitch,” the Devil whispered. Her lips barely brushed the shell of his ear. It was the most terrifying moment of the night. “Dick.”

Her arm wrapped like a vice around Todd’s throat.

Todd made a series of choked-off noises that were pathetic even to his own ears. His vision began to tunnel, and a distant ringing eclipsed every other sound. He wondered if the knife even hurt her. He wondered if anything could.

Dancing with the Devil didn’t tend to end well.

As soon as both men were unconscious, Karen clutched at the sharp, searing pain in her side. She felt hot blood seep through the palm of her glove.

There wasn’t time to berate herself for how stupid the decision to come to this warehouse had been; Karen heard a door slam open and a suspicious shout. She took off running.

She spent a long moment, too long, perched on the roof of a building, trying to decide which way to go. Foggy’s apartment was closer than hers by several city blocks. Since she had been informally living with him for months, most of her stuff was there. But Foggy would be there, too.

Eventually, a sick wave of pain and dizziness made the choice for her.

Blood dripped on the concrete like a leaking faucet. Karen realized with a dull kind of anxiety that she might bleed out, maybe even on Foggy’s floor. That wasn’t fair, leaving herself as a mess for her friend to clean up.

 _Just don’t die,_ Karen’s brain advised her helpfully. The latch on Foggy’s living room window seemed trickier than it had ever been.

The window gave way almost unexpectedly. Karen tumbled inside, feeling a fresh spurt of blood slide across her skin. Concentrated in that one jagged slice was the kind of pain that could fill a whole body. She groaned through gritted teeth and clutched at a nearby table to pull herself up.

“I don’t know who you think you are,” Foggy’s voice floated through her ears, “but I have a bat and I’m calling the cops.”

“Foggy,” Karen gasped. She hadn’t heard him coming, trying to keep herself afloat in a sea of pain. Ripping off the mask was like surfacing, and she blinked in the sudden light. “If you want to call the police, I won’t stop you, but can you get my first aid kit before you do that?”

Foggy’s only words for the next ten minutes were a litany of “what,” “the,” and “fuck,” exclusively in that order.

Karen heard him pacing outside as she wrapped bandages and gauze around herself in the bathroom. It was a struggle to stagger from her seat on the lid of the toilet back to the couch, but this one wasn’t a conversation she could fight her way out of. Under better circumstances, she would have slipped out the bathroom window before Foggy knew she was gone. Then again, under better circumstances, none of this would have happened.

“Okay,” Foggy said when he saw her again. “I hallucinated that, right? You totally  _didn’t_ just crawl through my third story window with a stab wound while wearing a black mask. I’m having a crazy, stress-related dream.”

“Sorry,” Karen shrugged. Her apology, and her eyes, were directed at Foggy’s lamp rather than Foggy himself. “Unfortunately, we’re both awake.”

“Well shit, then, what the _fuck?”_

Karen winced.

“Could you be more specific?” she asked. “I’m not sure how to answer that question.”

“Alright.” Foggy ran a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. “I can do specific. Who stabbed you? Is that specific enough?”

“I don’t know his name. One of Fisk’s goons.” The filament in the lamp flickered almost imperceptibly. It was close to burning out.

 _“Fisk’s--?_ Wait. Back up.” Foggy would have to replace that bulb in the next day, two tops. As he spoke, Karen wondered if he kept spare bulbs or if he would need to go to the store. “Why were you fighting Fisk’s goons?”

“I tracked the drugs that junkie used, the one who killed Elena.” Now that it was finally happening, talking about her nocturnal activities didn’t fill Karen with the terror she had expected. After everything, she was more numb than afraid. “They led me to this huge operation, probably the whole city’s worth of heroin. But it was too big for one night.” She should warn Foggy about the light bulb. “So I found another, some shipping thing down by the docks that gets occasional deliveries from the first place. They, uh. They _really_ like warehouses.”

“And how did this lead to you getting yourself stabbed?” Foggy was, surprisingly, more hung up on the stabbing part than the secret identity part.

No one had bothered to close the window, Karen noted.

“I wanted to send a message to Fisk. I wanted him to know that what he’s doing, it isn’t untouchable. It can be broken.” Karen shook her head. “I got careless. That doesn’t usually happen.”

“Usually.” Foggy was more visibly upset than Karen had ever seen him. “You make a habit of fighting crime lords and their cronies?”

“Can we not pretend you don’t know what’s going on here, Foggy?” Karen asked. She looked away from the lamp and met his eyes.

“God, Karen.” He slumped in defeat. “The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, huh?” Foggy’s fists pressed to his forehead as he started pacing again. “Even if this weren’t so illegal, which it _is_ , by the way, I can’t even tell you know illegal it is. I went to law school and I don’t think I even _learned_ all the ways this is illegal... You’re going to get somebody killed. You’ll get _yourself_ killed.”

“I’m protecting people, not killing them.” The thought of killing left a sour taste under Karen’s tongue, and a very specific scar on the topographical map of her body throbbed with phantom pain.

“What if you die?” Foggy whipped around to face her. His arms were pulled tight against his sides. “What if they find your body while Fisk is still a hero and you’re still the devil? How do you expect Matt and me to cope with… with knowing that?”

"Matt doesn’t have to know.” Panic flared in Karen’s cold chest. “I can hide this from him--"

"Why? Because he can't see the... " Foggy gestured to his own face, mirroring the swollen and bleeding places of hers. "I already told him, Karen. About the split lips. The bruises. That’s part of why I asked you to stay here, actually. I thought you had some secret scumbag boyfriend. Matt and I, we were ready to help you press charges, had a pile of pamphlets to subtly leave on your desk. But no,” he made a high, hysterical sound, “of course it’s not that simple.”

Karen squeezed her eyes shut. She hoped the tears wouldn’t fall too freely.

“I have to do this, Foggy,” she explained. “But you don’t have to be a part of it. It’s not your responsibility.”

Foggy’s face crumpled.

“But it’s yours?”

Karen shrugged and offered a wobbly sort of smile.

“Who else’s is it going to be?”

“Jesus,” Foggy moaned as he collapsed into an armchair. “You sound just like Matt. He thinks it’s his job to rid this city of evil.”

“Fisk hurt a lot of people.” Karen leaned forward, blocking out the pain in her side. She needed him to understand. “Elena is _dead._ If I sound like Matt, it’s because he’s the only other person willing to fight for what’s right around here.”

“No, it’s because you both stick your fucking noses where they don’t belong.” Foggy was starting to cry; wet sobs turned his voice into a wavering croak. “You two don’t get it, neither of you. That city, out there,” he pointed accusingly to the window. “It doesn’t give a shit about any of us. The people in it will never know that you saved them, and when Fisk and his hired guns come knocking they’ll all lose everything you managed to protect anyway.”

“So, what? You just want to give up?”

“I just want my friends to be safe,” Foggy whispered. “I want to do my job and help people without diving off of buildings or -- or finding what’s left of you and Matt in a box on my doorstep because you knew something you shouldn’t.”

“Yeah,” Karen made a bitter noise that might have thought it was laughter. “But we don’t always get what we want, Foggy. Life doesn’t work that way.”

Foggy opened his mouth on a retort, but the sound of his cell phone’s ringtone cut off whatever he was about to say. He looked at the screen.

“It’s Matt,” he said, as if resigned to the inevitable.

Karen stopped breathing. The idea of Matt -- brave, fearless Matt, who already made a habit of tossing his self-preservation to the wind in favor of swinging out at shadows he could never see -- the idea of him bearing the weight of another secret that might lose him his life made Karen sick with anxiety.

“Please,” said Karen. “You can’t tell him about this. If he knows, he’ll only be in more danger.”

She had made Matt a promise, months ago. It was one she intended to keep.

Foggy glanced between her and the phone.

“He’s my best friend, Karen.” His voice was barely there.

“I know.” Karen curled in on herself, a ball of blood and shame. “Do what you have to do. Just know… That’s what Matt and I are doing, too. Remember that.”

Foggy swallowed, cleared his throat, and answered Matt’s call.

“Hey, what’s up?” His tone was roughened by tears. He sounded tired.

 _“Foggy,”_ Karen heard Matt, tinny and excited, on the other end of the line. Something told her Foggy wouldn’t appreciate the invasion of privacy, but it was hard to block out; she caught phrases here and there. _“I found... county clerk’s office... would have missed it... most of... not in Braille… Ben can only… so often-- wait... wake you up?”_

“Nah, it’s okay.” Foggy seemed steadier after hearing Matt’s voice. “What did you find?”

_“Okay... prove anything… Yet. How would... upstate?”_

“I, uh.” Foggy’s eyes shifted to Karen. “I don’t know if that’s in the cards for the next couple of days. Why don’t we talk about this later? Get some sleep, for once.” The fond chastisement was the gentlest thing Karen had heard from Foggy all night.

_“...Not important… bigger than… more digging… sleep when I’m dead.”_

“That might be sooner than you think, if you keep this up.” Foggy looked into Karen’s eyes as he said this. The roughness was coming back to his voice.

_“I’ll be fine, Fog… worry too much… back to sleep… tell you tomorrow… night.”_

“Goodnight, Matt.” Foggy hung up the phone and shared a long look with Karen.

“Thank you,” she whispered. Foggy shook his head.

“Didn’t do anything worth thanking me for.” He dragged his feet on the way to his bedroom, but stopped in the doorway. “Karen?” His pale face was turned in profile against the dark. “You weren’t lying about how bad you’re hurt, right?”

“I’ve had worse,” was all she said.

“Right. Goodnight.” Foggy closed the door behind him. Karen heard his shirt rustle as he leaned back against the wall and slid to the floor. “When did I decide to only be friends with martyrs?” he grumbled.

Foggy knew she could hear him.

“I’m sorry,” she answered. “I don’t think you had a choice.”

Karen knew he couldn’t hear her.

 

* * *

 

Karen left before Foggy woke the next morning. She didn’t go home, nor did she show up at the office. She just walked, careful of her hastily stitched wound.

She stopped at food carts to smell the constituent parts that went into a New York hot dog. She picked a random person on the street and listened to them going about their business.

An elderly man went to the dry cleaners, then stopped by an apartment building to pick up his granddaughter. They walked, hand-in-hand, to visit the girl’s mother in hospice.

Karen listened to someone else.

It wasn’t a bad way to spend the day. The taste of a fresh plum at a market stand reminded her of sticky summer days as a child. Flowers on a white-candled street shrine smelled like love and grief.

It was an excuse to avoid Foggy, and she knew it, but this was the reason Karen had come to New York in the first place. The experience of the city was electrifying. It could have been a hell of over-stimulation-- some days, of course, it was. But most of the time, the sirens and suffering were only part of the song the streets themselves sang. The wind in the wires of the Brooklyn Bridge played a symphony: the car horns and barking dogs, a sonata.

Her senses had been used for so much fighting, it was easy to forget the gift of beauty they could be if Karen took the time to notice.

She spent the rest of the week that way. For three days, she spoke to no one and listened to everything.

On Thursday, she passed an elderly woman with dark eyes, chatting on her cell phone. The woman’s voice, something in the warm smell of her ancient skin, reminded Karen acutely of Elena. A sea of salt water bubbled up her throat and washed out her stinging eyes. Karen ran a thumb along the ridge of stitches healing under her shirt.

Memories of the patient way Elena always smiled at Foggy’s nonexistent Spanish came unbidden. More unwelcome were the memories of Karen’s violence in response to her death.

Something about her pain felt selfish.

Foggy didn’t call her, and neither did Matt. Foggy had probably made up some cover story about Karen being sick. She trusted him to keep her secret. Anyway, if he hadn’t, Matt would have hunted her down by now, rabid with questions.

She missed her boys, though. The two of them had gotten along fine for five years without her, but, in a relatively short amount of time, Karen had become a part of their equilibrium. She could feel the chemistry, the give and take of three people who had found each other and did not intend to let go.

As Karen stood on a rocky shoreline and stared beyond the muddy shallows, more garbage than fish, out to the blue water at the horizon, she hoped this secret wouldn’t break them. She wondered what Matt and Foggy were doing, and if they thought the same of her.

 

* * *

 

All things considered, Matt was having a pretty good week.

Since finding Fisk’s mother in the nursing home-- Ben had finally acquiesced to drive him there, after a lot of pleading and bribery-- Matt felt like Foggy was, at long last, taking the investigation seriously.

Maybe it was losing Elena, maybe it was the presence of a solid lead, but something motivated Matt’s partner to stay late in the office with him three nights in a row. Sifting through files went faster when he didn’t have to convert them all to Braille or work around Ben’s schedule, so Matt elected not to question whatever it was that changed Foggy’s mind.

Karen’s absence was a concern, of course. By Friday evening, Matt was starting to get worried about how long she had been sick.

“I talked to her on Tuesday,” Foggy had assured him. “She wasn’t feeling well.”

“I should call her, maybe drop by,” Matt had said.

“No! No, uh, you don’t need to do that. She needs her rest. She wasn’t in great shape, last time I saw her.”

Matt walked home that night, after asking Foggy to “give Karen my best, and tell her to get well soon.” He breathed in the night air, for all intents and purposes indistinguishable from the day air, and came close to smiling.

After a productive week, a few steps closer to justice, Matt’s heart was bolstered by the work he did and the fact that he had Foggy fully by his side at last.

As Matt stood outside the door to his building, performing the minor daily juggling act of hanging onto his cane while fishing out his keys, he heard a scrape along the pavement. It was quick and light, the sole of a shoe most likely, and he put it out of his mind almost as soon as he noted it.

A sudden hand wrapped around his face, then another at his torso, and Matt thrashed in the grip of someone holding a cloth to his mouth and nose. The cloth stank, filling his sinuses with the smell of… of…

Matt tried and failed to think of the word as his ears began to fill with cotton balls.


	4. Chapter 4

Karen wasn’t ready to fight again.

Physically, sure, the wound in her side had knitted itself back together -- and maybe that was part of the problem, how quickly she healed, another thing to make her an impossible freak.

But every time she thought about following her nose back to that building full of heroin, of doing anything at all to follow through on that message to Fisk, she heard a familiar voice:

_“You’re going to get somebody killed.”_

Matt came to consciousness, gasping, and found himself in an uncomfortable chair. His pulse pounded with the rush that comes from waking in an unfamiliar place. His throat didn’t seem to be working right.

For a second, the most puzzling thing in his spinning head was the realization that he wasn’t wearing his glasses. His confusion turned to panic when he remembered the rag against his mouth and nose, the hands pulling him backward, and the sound of his cane clattering to the ground as he reached out for something to grab hold of.

A man a few feet in front of him cleared his throat, obviously for Matt’s benefit.

“Where are my-- Where am I?” Matt demanded. The effect was probably ruined by the way his tongue wouldn’t quite cooperate with his brain.

“An undisclosed location,” said a voice as crisp and even as a freshly-pressed suit.

“What am I doing here?”

“Did you know, Mrs. Vistain’s memory is… spotty at best, these days,” the man remarked in a conversational tone. Matt’s thundering blood turned to ice. “Half the time she can’t remember which orderly brought her lunch. But you? Well. _You_ made an impression. The handsome, blind man. So kind. So interested in her son.”

Matt closed his eyes.

The man placed something heavy on the table.

“This is a gun, Mr. Murdock.”

“And how do I know that?” Matt asked.

“I suppose you’ll have to take it on faith.”

_Keep him talking,_  Matt told himself. _He can’t kill you while he’s talking. Use that lawyer brain of yours, Murdock._

“You know who I am. Do I get the same privilege?”

“We’ve met,” the man answered shortly. “My name is James Wesley.”

Matt wracked his brain trying to remember where he had heard this voice before.

“Fisk,” he recalled at last. “You work for Fisk.”

Karen’s legs dangled over the edge of a ten-story building. She briefly considered the fact that she should probably have put the mask on before leaving her apartment, but the lights of the city were too beautiful, in their aloof way, for her to hide her eyes tonight. Neon, incandescent, and fluorescent layered upon each other in a fracturing rainbow, skittering across chrome, brick, and iron. New York glowed with history.

She thought about Foggy.

He was scared of the position Karen had put him in, of course. _That’s_ why he was so angry. That’s why he begged her to stop pursuing Fisk. It put him in _danger_ \--

No, that wasn’t quite right.

He was scared of losing Matt. The two of them were practically one person, inseparable on a foundational level. Karen put _Foggy’s other half_ in danger--

But that wasn’t it either, not entirely. Karen only turned up the heat in the Kitchen where Foggy’s best friend had already been cooking. He wasn’t angry with Matt for digging into things he shouldn’t be. He was worried, sure, but he didn’t cry over Matt’s investigations the same way he cried about Karen’s--

Her bruises.

She slowly lifted a hand to touch her tender, discolored cheek. It had taken her longer than it should have to realize, but to be fair…

It had been a while since someone cared about Karen’s well-being that much.

“I’m not tied down, you’re not holding that gun to my head,” Matt assessed in a tone calmer than he felt. “Are you assuming a blind man can’t be a threat?”

“You know plenty, I daresay too much, about my employer. So I ask you: why would I assume anyone could be a threat?”

“You came here alone,” Matt pointed out. It was a test, little more than a Hail Mary.

“That’s true,” Wesley conceded. _Hail Mary, full of grace..._ “I did that because I have an offer for you, one that I doubt Mr. Fisk would be willing to extend if he knew whom you visited in the nursing home. He’s very protective of his mother, you see.”

Matt remained silent. _Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death..._

“What I want from you,” Wesley continued when it became clear Matt wasn’t going to speak, “is the same thing I wanted from you when we first met. With, of course, an additional caveat.”

“You still want me as one of Fisk’s lawyers?” asked Matt, shocked.

“And,” Matt heard Wesley pick up the gun. “I want your cooperation. What you’re going to do is take that noble face of yours back to whomever you’ve convinced to help you bear this cross, and tell them you were wrong. Tell them Wilson Fisk is a good man. It’s obvious you have a promising future as an attorney ahead of you, Mr. Murdock. It would be a shame to sully that with an unfortunate... incident.”

“You might as well kill me now,” Matt spat venomously. “Because I’ll never end up in Fisk’s pocket.”

“Oh, of course I’m not going to kill you _now.”_

This chilled Matt to the bone.

“What?”

“No, first I’m going to find your friend, Mr. Urich. He came with you to the retirement home, did he not? Then your partner, Mr. Nelson. Your secretary, Ms. Page. The barista at the corner shop where you like to buy your coffee.” Each word hit Matt like a punch to the gut. “Everyone who matters to you in the slightest is going to suffer, and when I’ve finished with them, _that_ is when we will come for you.”

Matt’s hands, where they clamped like vices on the edge of the table, were the only steady thing about him. The rest of his body shook with rage.

“I won’t let you do that.”

“And how, exactly, do you plan to stop me?”

Matt shoved the table forward, straight into Wesley’s solar plexus. Using that momentum to leap to his feet, Matt swung out with one fist. He connected with something, probably a jaw by the feel of it, and hoped to God for three things: that Wesley had dropped the gun, didn’t have self-defense training, and hadn’t lied about coming alone.

One of these hopes was in vain.

When Karen heard Matt scream, she was eight city blocks away. By the time the gunshot rang out, she thought she would be too late.

Crashing through the upper window of a warehouse was an inconvenient situation at best. Karen made the most of it.

She ducked and rolled onto a high pile of two-by-fours and landed hard on the concrete floor. Blood and gunpowder bloomed through the smell of metal and dust. Two people pinged on her radar: one man standing and another collapsed on the ground. The standing man pointed the recently-fired gun at her with steady hands.

“You?” he exclaimed. “But how--?” She didn’t let him finish.

The fight was quick and dirty.

“You won’t kill me,” Wesley laughed through the blood in his mouth. Karen had him by the lapels after slamming his head into the ground. She dropped him in disgust

“How do you know?” she snarled. “Maybe I’ve done it before.”

He only laughed harder. Karen made sure to snatch up the gun when she noticed his hand creeping toward it. She would be smelling the gunpowder on these clothes for weeks.

“All that trouble you’ve caused, and you’ve never left a body behind. That is why we are going to win, and you and all of your friends,” he tilted his head in the direction of where Matt lay bleeding, “are going to die. I know who you are now, Ms. Page. You’re the lunatic in the mask, and roughing me up like a common thug won’t stop--”

Karen pulled the trigger just to make him stop talking.

Then she did it again.

And again.

And again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a much shorter chapter than the others, and I'm sorry for leaving everyone hanging again! When I wrote this, it ended up being the most logical place to stop. I promise you'll get more bang for your buck next time.
> 
> Karen, honey, you've got a big storm comin'.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't know how gunshots, shoulders, or painkillers work. Please forgive my egregious medical inaccuracies.

Karen heard the exact moment when Wesley’s heart stopped beating. The smell of his blood hit her in the face like the swelling salt of the sea. She couldn’t hold back a gag.

The silence that his heartbeat left behind was filled by another.

Karen scrambled to Matt’s side. There would be time to scream later, time to cry and tremble and drink her fears away. For now, she needed to stop someone she loved from dying.

Matt’s face was made of wax paper. His breathing was shallow. Karen slapped his cheeks gently and hoped she could at least keep him conscious.

“Matt?” she said, then cleared her throat to flush away the worry in her voice. “Matt, can you hear me?”

“Karen?” he slurred. His voice was barely a whisper. Anyone else probably wouldn’t have heard it.

“Yes.” She wasn’t sure if the relieved sound she made was a laugh or a sob. “Stay with me, Matt. Here, hold my hand.” She clutched his boneless hand the way she used to hold her grandmother’s china back when she was young and clumsy. “We can’t stay here, okay? I’m going to pull you up, and you’re going to keep your arm around my shoulders. You just have to stay on your feet. I’ll do the rest. Can you do that, Matt?”

Matt’s eyelids fluttered, but his unfocused gaze told Karen nothing.

“Matt!” Karen was startled by her own volume. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she breathed in slowly.

“Matt,” she said again, calmer. “Please, just nod if you can hear me.” Matt’s head lolled back so slowly it was torturous, but finally it came forward. It was a weak gesture, but a deliberate one. Karen smiled. “Okay. Here we go. Careful, careful,” she made encouraging sounds as she pulled him to his feet.

The first few steps were delicate. He stumbled once. After that, Karen saw a tendon in his jaw tighten; he was determined. So was she.

Karen mumbled apologies as she stopped to swipe her sleeve across the table where Matt’s fingerprints would be left. Her right arm was around his torso, and with her left hand she tucked the gun into the back of her pants. They limped out of the warehouse in a gruesome parody of a three-legged race.

“Just need to get far enough away that it won’t be too suspicious,” Karen mumbled, more to herself than to Matt. Anyone who saw the two of them would, hopefully, think they were just drunk. As long as nobody saw the red swath of blood staining Matt’s shirt.

As the stain spread, so too did a sick burning in Karen’s gut. She wanted desperately to cast her hands across Matt’s skin and put him back together, to sniff out exactly where that blood was coming from and push it back inside, but she couldn’t let them stop moving.

They hobbled down the street in a shadowy corner of Hell’s Kitchen for what felt like hours. Karen was seized, periodically, by the fear that they were being followed.

She pulled Matt down an alley at the distant sound of an approaching car. Matt silently pitched forward and fell to his knees.

Karen shouted his name again.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I can keep going.” But his eyes closed and he slumped down.

“No, no Matt,” she said as she crouched to help him to lie on his back. “It’s okay.” _Stupid,_ she thought. _Of course he wouldn’t tell you he was feeling weak._

Over the sound of her own frantic pulse, Karen heard a new heartbeat. She peered into the dripping darkness and saw the figure of a young man carrying a trash bag. Karen looked at him, then at Matt’s trembling hand, and took a gamble.

“Help!” she called. The boy at the end of the alley jumped, startled. “Help, please, my friend is hurt!”

The sound of clattering cans echoed against concrete and steel. He turned around and sprinted away. Karen hung her head. She clutched at Matt’s hand again, listening closely to his weakening breaths.

Everything hit Karen at once in the wake of her helplessness. She felt each drop of Wesley’s blood that had sprayed across her face. She tasted metal and sawdust and fear. Matt’s breathing was ragged, irregular, impossible to count the time by. Tears and human blood weren’t so different when you got right down to it; the smell of them both running across her skin was vertigo-inducing.

Then came the sound of footsteps.

 _“Dijo que necesita ayudar,”_ Karen heard a young man's voice say. _“Debo ir contigo. Podría ser peligroso.”_

 _“Gracias, Santino, pero yo tendré cuidado,”_ replied a woman. Out of the same shadows the boy had run into minutes before, someone new came at a brisk pace. “Hello?” the woman called into the dark. Karen braced herself against the alley wall and rose to her feet, wary but hopeful.

“Can you help us? My friend is hurt, and I...” Karen paused. “I don’t know this part of the city very well.” Not from the ground, at least.

The woman came closer, looking Matt over while keeping an eye on Karen.

“Help me carry him,” she said at last. “I need better lighting, and this,” she pointed at the Dumpster a foot away, “is not a sanitary environment.”

-

 

“Thank you,” Karen said, clutching at a warm mug of tea, while they waited for an ambulance in the woman’s apartment.

It was one of those moments when Karen realized, after the fact, that she must have broken a silence. Gaps in conversation were filled by so many other things for her, they rarely registered as quiet. Now more than ever, Karen had other things worth listening to; Matt hadn’t entirely come to yet, but his heartbeat and breathing were stronger after a healthy dose of gauze and rest.

The woman told her that Matt had been shot in the shoulder, that his dizziness was most likely a combination of adrenal fatigue and shock from the pain, and that Karen looked like she could use a drink.

“I’d be a bad hostess if I didn’t offer you something. I’m Claire, by the way,” the woman said. She and her brisk hands, gentle as a matter of course when they patched up Matt, were as strong as stones washed by the edges of the sea. “Mind telling me who I just stopped from bleeding out on my couch?”

Karen stroked Matt’s hair thoughtfully.

“A good man.” There were flakes of drying blood on his scalp. They clung gummily to her skin where her fingers brushed against them.

“Uh huh.” Claire raised one eyebrow. “And who are you?”

Karen shrugged. Her eyes stayed fixed on Matt.

“Just a person trying to do her best.” At least part of that had to be true.

“It’d be nice if I could get a name.”

Karen pushed a strand of her own hair out of her face and didn’t answer.

“Alright, then,” Claire said, tossing her unbreakable hands in the air. “Will you at least let me take a look at that ankle?”

“Ankle?”

“Yeah. Don’t tell me you didn’t even notice.”

Karen stared blankly.

“You’ve been limping.” Claire was already reaching for a pillow to set under Karen’s leg. “I think it might be sprained. Here, prop your leg up.”

“Are you a doctor?” Karen was curious. Claire laughed shortly.

“Not exactly.”

Claire declared Karen’s ankle “definitely sprained” and got her a bandage and some ice.

“I know it’s none of _my_ business.” Claire was the one to break the silence this time. “But what are you planning to tell the doctor when he asks how a blind man got himself shot and his friend got away with a twisted ankle?”

Karen shrugged Claire’s question away. She wasn’t worried about doctors.

What scared her shitless was the thought of what she was going to tell Foggy.

-

“I’m suing for custody,” was the first thing Foggy said when he showed up, scowling, in the doorway of the hospital room. Karen sighed.

“He’s an adult, Foggy.” She stood up from the chair next to Matt’s bed.

“Yeah,” Matt giggled. “I’m an a- _dult_ , Foggy!” His head lolled on the starched white pillow.

“I’m talking about both of you!” Foggy pointed warningly at Matt and pulled Karen aside. They had the same intention: keep their conversation away from the half-conscious man with veins full of morphine. “You don’t expect me to actually believe you got mugged, right?” he whispered. “Because that’s what the doctors are saying, but you and I both know it’s bullshit.” Karen bit her lip and nodded. “This was because of your mask thing, wasn’t it?”

“No,” Karen said, and begged with her eyes for Foggy to believe her. “I mean, not entirely. It was mostly because Matt got kidnapped-- But that part had nothing to do with me!”

Foggy pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Kidnapped,” he repeated flatly. “Of fucking course he did.”

“So I saved him.”

“Saved him?” Foggy’s eyes narrowed. “Were you in the mask? Are some kidnapping whackjobs gonna come after us?”

“No,” Karen swallowed. “You don’t need to worry about that part. And I um… I threw the gun away. In the river. I don’t think anyone will find it.”

“The gun?” Foggy’s voice rose to a squeak. Karen shushed him. “Explain please,” he said quietly, “before I have a heart attack.”

“Fisk’s man, he… He dropped it. After I came in, after he shot Matt.” The panic Karen had been pushing down rose in her throat and stung like bile, or like a scream. She heard the wavering of it in her own voice.

Foggy’s anger seemed to fade away in an instant.

“Hey, Matty,” he ducked over to the bed and put a hand on Matt’s arm. “K and I are going to get some coffee. Don’t hit on any nurses while we’re gone.” Matt smiled dopily past Foggy’s head and almost smacked himself in the face reaching out for a fist bump.

Foggy kept a protective hand on Karen’s back as they marched together down the gleaming white hallway.

Hospitals made Karen anxious; even someone without her abilities could smell the antiseptic, the suffocating odor of latex and chemicals, but Karen smelled the blood underneath it all. She heard crying families cramming their tired bodies into uncomfortable chairs. Hospitals were not a place people went to when they didn’t have to. Everything about them screamed the fact.

She focused on the gentle weight of Foggy’s hand.

“The coffee machine is that way,” she said, through the tears waiting to fall from her eyes.

“I’m sure it is.” Foggy replied. He kept walking. “Stay with me, Karen.”

She remembered saying those same words to Matt less than two hours ago. Karen felt like she had been punched in the throat.

They reached a section of the hospital that was practically deserted. There was a sign on the wall for a single, unisex bathroom. Foggy opened the door and gestured for Karen go to inside.

“Okay,” Foggy sighed, closing the door behind them. He put his hands on Karen’s shoulders. “Start from the beginning.”

“I was up on a roof.” The story spilled out of her, too much pressure behind too small of a dam. “Just… Just clearing my head.” Karen’s eyes darted from Foggy’s hair, to the wall behind him, to her own hands. Anywhere but her friend’s eyes. “I heard Matt. He screamed. It-- it sounded like he was hurt. There was a, a gunshot. And I got there, and it was that man. The one who brought us the Healy case?”

 _‘Do you hire all your ex-clients? Or just the pretty ones?’_ Karen remembered his words, and the old, sharp anger mixed with the blood in her mouth.

“He had a gun,” she said. “I fought him, and Matt was lying there on the ground, bleeding, and the guy in the suit was laughing. I got the gun away from him. I wasn’t going to use it. I _wasn’t._ ”

Foggy helped Karen to the floor, where she knelt with her head in her hands. He was making that concerned face, the one that looked like his heart was breaking.

“He… He threatened you,” she explained. As if that made it better. “You, and Ben, and I don’t know who else. ‘All of your friends,’ he said.” Karen felt her tone turn darker. It was more of a growl than a sob when she talked about Wesley. “I was so angry, Foggy. And I was so _scared._ He knew who I was, he worked for Fisk. It wasn’t an empty threat. And I couldn’t just let him go and watch everyone get hurt, again, because of me. So I--” Karen’s voice broke. She gulped in air as if the last few minutes had been spent underwater, as if she had only just remembered how to work her lungs. Everything was spinning, like she knew it would be when she allowed the realization to hit.

She hadn’t counted on it happening on the floor of a hospital bathroom, but these things never go according to plan.

“Shhhh." Foggy made soothing noises into Karen’s hair. “You’re safe. _I’m_ safe. Hey,” he curled his fingers around one of Karen’s wrists. Her hands were clenched into fists, tight against her collarbone, but she let Foggy pull one toward him. He laid her palm on his chest, right over his beating heart. “Focus on that?”

The tiny _thump-thump_ of Foggy’s steadfast heart tapped against her hand. She heard and felt him breathing. Safe, keeping her safe.

“I shot him.” Karen finally said it aloud. Foggy sucked in an involuntary gasp. “I saved Matt’s life, but I took someone else’s. I’m not sorry he’s dead, but that’s--” She choked on a pained noise. “That’s not a good feeling.”

“He was a bad man,” Foggy whispered after a long pause. “He would have killed both of you. But-- but you’re right. It’s not good.”

A silence stretched out, filled only by the sound of dripping water from the sink.

“And Fisk is going to find me,” Karen said. She took her hand off Foggy’s chest and wrapped her arms around herself. “He already wants me dead, the me in the mask, but now he’ll find _me_.”

“With the trouble Matt’s been getting himself into, Fisk would have found all three of us anyway.” Foggy sounded like he needed to be convinced as much as Karen did. The acrid taste of fear filled the air around him. “This isn’t your fault. I’m not going to pretend like I like what you do, you know, in the mask, but you saved Matt’s life. You acted in self-defense; you didn’t do anything wrong.”

 _Maybe not,_ Karen didn’t say. _But would you tell me that if you knew? Killing bad men only gets easier._

“I’ve made my choices,” she said instead. “I don’t want anyone else to suffer for them.”

Foggy sighed.

“From what I’ve seen, the choices you’re making?” He caught her eye and smiled for the first time. It was a sad, little smile, but a smile from Foggy nonetheless. “The only one suffering from them, who doesn’t deserve it, is you.”

There was a kind of symmetry in the hug she and Foggy shared after that.

_The taste of toothpaste and coffee..._

_The texture of the carpet in Foggy’s living room cutting marks into her knees..._

The memory of these things layered itself over the gunpowder between her teeth and the cold, bathroom tile. She choked out an apology for getting tears on his shirt, and he kissed the top of her head so tenderly that something in Karen ached.

Even when she wanted nothing more than to crawl out of her own skin, Foggy never shied away from touching her.

When her eyes were dry, Foggy poked his head out the door to make sure the coast was clear before they headed back.

“I don’t want anyone thinking you were in there compromising my virtue,” Foggy explained. “Imagine the scandal.”

“You know there are probably security cameras in this hallway, right?”

Foggy shrugged. “I’m going to get a cup of coffee and try not to think about a sweaty, underpaid guard being disappointed he missed the show.”

They retraced their steps and, with the help of Karen’s nose, found the elusive coffee machine. It was shitty coffee, watered down and steaming in the paper cup. Foggy took a long sip and smacked his lips.

“Ah,” he said with a contented sigh. “Still better than yours.” There was no malice in the joke, only fondness. He wasn’t at ease yet; Karen could hear it in his breathing. “Come on, let’s keep an eye on Matt until they kick us out.”

Foggy put his arm in Karen’s and guided her close to him. She welcomed the closeness, squeezing his bicep in thanks. He might not be easy around her again for a while, but he wasn’t leaving. And wasn’t that something?

 

Matt spent most of the next week in the hospital. They closed up shop while he was there-- “It’s not like we have any clients, anyway,” Foggy said, and Karen’s hands clenched reflexively as she thought about when they _did_ \-- but Karen didn’t visit again.

Foggy picked Matt up on the day he was released. According to his doctor, the bullet had gone straight through his shoulder, but not without causing a little damage and a lot of pain. In the long-term, they said, it would heal enough to be barely noticeable in day-to-day life. Foggy bemoaned the loss of Matt’s professional baseball career, and Matt grinned and told him to look on the bright side; at least they still had ameteur company softball.

Still, it had been a close thing. Where the bullet went through, there was the barest amount of leeway between a lung on one side and an artery on the other.

“First time in history that a Murdock has gotten lucky in a fight,” Matt said as Foggy walked him down the steps of the hospital to a waiting cab. He laughed once at his own joke, then winced at the pain that shot through his bandaged left shoulder.

“Let’s not test those odds again,” Foggy replied with a tight squeeze of Matt’s arm-- the one not in a sling. “You’ve got to be more careful, man. I want to take this son of a bitch down as badly as you do, but you know what they say; dead men tell no testimonies.”

“I don’t think you have that saying quite right,” Matt smirked. “But you have a point. The, uh, woman in the mask won’t always be there to save me, huh?”

“Right.” Foggy cleared his throat. “The woman in the mask.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I disappeared for a ridiculous amount of time! College is Kicking My Ass and I accidentally fell into the Hamilton fandom. It's been a wild couple months. Anyway, have some egregious exposition. 
> 
> Please feel free to comment and rip this chapter apart; it was a pain in the neck to write and it deserves all you can throw at it.

Back at Matt’s apartment, Karen was listening.

She was there under the pretense of setting up for the Welcome Home Matt-slash-Congrats on Not Dying party, but considering that mostly entailed putting beer and takeout boxes of Thai food on the table, most of her energy was focused on listening.

Matt and Foggy were the white noise of Karen’s life. The cadence of their voices, their footsteps, the beat of their hearts, settled into her bones. They felt like home.

Karen tried not to think about what that meant, most days.

Today, it only meant she could hear them coming from blocks away. They talked and joked as casually as possible, considering they were coming home from the hospital. That was probably a good sign. Karen couldn’t be sure how much, if anything, Matt remembered.

Was her secret safe from him?

If not, was it safe with him?

Karen trusted Matt. She trusted him so much it scared her, but this was big, and Karen wanted Matt to trust her back. Maybe knowing just how much Karen had been keeping secret would rot that trust away.

Speculating did no one any good, though, and Matt and Foggy were coming up the stairs. Karen pasted on her brightest smile, for her own benefit.

She crowed a greeting in unison with Foggy when he opened the door.

“Surprise!”

Matt’s eyes tracked uselessly across the room as he blinked in confusion.

“What did you two do?” he asked. There was more joy in the question than suspicion.

“Don’t worry, we didn’t rearrange your furniture,” Foggy assured him. “We have Thai food and libations to celebrate your safe return.”

“It’s sort of a party,” Karen added.

Matt laughed.

After Foggy helped him out of his coat, Matt sat down at his own tiny kitchen table and inclined his head toward him.

“Hey, Fog, I, uh. I lost my glasses.” Matt’s free hand fisted in the fabric of his pants leg. “I kept forgetting to ask you to bring them to the hospital when you visited.” Karen raised her eyebrows as Matt’s heart tapped out _lie, lie, lie._ “Do you think you could grab my spare pair out of the dresser?”

“Yeah.” Foggy glanced at Karen, a silent question. She shrugged in response, resigned. “I’ll be right back.”

“Thanks.” As soon as Foggy left the room, the smile dropped off Matt’s face. He turned toward Karen, and his posture was courtroom straight. His watch ticked out the seconds before he spoke. “Do you remember the first time you were here in my apartment?”

“What?” Of all the questions Karen had been expecting, this wasn’t one of them.

“The first time you were here,” Matt repeated. “You told me about the lights. And that you were from Boston.”

“I’m sorry I lied,” Karen said instinctively. There were too many lies in her quickening, rabbit heart; the apology wasn’t big enough to cover them all.

“Not your fault, I asked you to. That time,” Matt said with his courtroom smile. “But do you remember what I said, about how I knew you were lying?”

Karen swallowed a shaky breath. Foggy was muttering to himself in Matt’s bedroom: _“for a blind guy, this place is a fucking hazard zone, where the fuck are those glasses?”_

“Voices,” she answered. “You said they’re… hard to disguise.”

Matt nodded.

“They are. I’ve been wrong, of course. Like the day we met that masked woman.” Matt wore his glasses too often, Karen thought; it was easy to forget the way his eyes never focused, never stayed still the way a sighted person’s would. It wasn’t disconcerting, per se, but it was distracting, made the intent behind his careful expressions hard to read. “Or at least, I thought I was wrong. Her voice was familiar, but I figured, no, it can’t be. She _couldn’t._ ”

Matt paused, let the silence roll on.

In the space between bated breaths, Karen had a very sudden realization about Matt Murdock: He could have been an actor. A magician. Some kind of showman, holding an audience in thrall with the perfect amount of earnestness and silence. Instead, he was a lawyer, the jury his audience.

At the end of the day, what was the difference?

“I had a lot of time to myself in the hospital, to go over what happened.” Matt said. “I replayed the whole thing in my head, over and over, and it just doesn’t add up.”

Karen pulled out the chair opposite Matt and sat down. His heart thumped in his chest more loudly than normal, but it wasn’t fear. Not fear of Karen, at least.

He was building to a grand finale, Karen could feel the anticipation. She was a stupefied crowd of one.

“And what do you think now?” Her voice was a weak, fetal thing.

“I think there’s no way you just walked into that warehouse while a man with a gun was trying to kill me. I think it should have been impossible for either of us to get out of there alive.” He leaned in closer, across the tabletop. “I think the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen saved my life. And,” he took a deep breath, “I think I’ve met her more than once.”

“These,” Foggy said as he returned from Matt’s bedroom, “had better be the fucking Holy Grail of tinted glasses. I almost died looking for them. Uh-- no… offense?”

Matt jumped as if electrocuted at the sound of Foggy’s voice. Karen sat back in her chair as the spell was broken.

“Foggy, thank you.” He held out his hand for the glasses and frantically put them on his face. “I don’t-- I can’t _imagine_ how they ended up somewhere that hard to find. I--”

“Matt,” Karen almost laughed. The great orator was fumbling. “For a lawyer, you have the worst poker face.” She looked up at Foggy, whose face was crinkled in confusion, and smelled the salt of her own unshed tears. It was amazing, how quickly this life Karen had shakily built managed to fall apart. “He knows.”

“Wait.” Matt’s hand fell flat on the tabletop. “ _Foggy_ knows?”

“He found out too, it’s not like I decided to tell him--”

“Oh, so you weren’t going to tell either one of--?”

“No, that’s not what I meant. You’d be in danger--”

“And getting shot in a warehouse isn’t--?”

“Hey!” Foggy slapped his own palms down on the table between Matt and Karen. “Stop talking over each other. Now, what the hell did I miss? Is this about what I think it’s about?”

Karen nodded.

“Yeah. I guess I-- Some secrets are impossible to keep,” she said. “I’m the, um. Devil Of Hell’s Kitchen.”

That was the first time Karen had said the name out loud. It wasn’t very grand, as far as declarations went; the words felt wrong in her mouth. She wasn’t even from this city. She didn’t deserve to be known by it.

Matt stood. His hand trailed gingerly up her arm until it found her shoulder and gripped tight. Karen looked at him.

His chin was at the wrong angle, too high above her head. He stared into some invisible distance like a statue of a long-gone hero.

“Please,” he said in a voice that came from deep in his chest. “Tell me everything.”

Thai food was stowed away in the fridge, and the beer sat unopened and forgotten. This wasn’t a party anymore.

Matt and Foggy sat on the couch, and Karen faced them from the chair. The setup reminded her of the interrogation room, the night they met.

“Heartbeats?” Foggy repeated, again. “You can hear people’s heartbeats.”

“I don’t get why you’re so focused on that,” Karen said.

“It’s _creepy_.”

“What I want to know,” Matt cut Foggy off before he could launch into a lecture about the dubious morality of listening to people’s pulses, “is where the fighting abilities come from. I’ve never seen you in action, obviously, but I’ve heard stories. That you fight like, well. Like the devil.”

“It’s complicated,” Karen said hesitantly.

“That’s not an answer,” Matt replied.

“Okay, fine. It’s like this.” She paused for a moment, lips pressed together, trying to figure out how to put into words things that no one else had ever needed to describe. “People have more than five senses. Everybody, more or less, not just me. Balance, knowing where your own body is in space, those are senses, and they were-- heightened, along with the rest, when I… became like this.” She shrugged, wincing a little. “It gives me the advantage in a fight, and at least I know I won’t trip and fall off a roof.”

She gave a weak little smile that Matt probably wouldn’t have returned even if he could see it.

“That’s not enough of an advantage to do what you do, though,” he responded at last. “You had to train, right?”

“Or did you just emerge from your superpowers cocoon,” Foggy made a wiggling motion with his fingers that probably made sense in his head, “ready to kick ass?”

“Not really helping, Foggy,” Matt murmured. Karen had been about to say the same thing.

“I learned martial arts,” she answered instead. “Jujitsu and taekwondo, mostly. And a little boxing, but you know that.”

Matt nodded.

“ _I_ did not know that, in case anyone cares,” Foggy interjected. “But go on.”

“Sorry, Foggy. I’ll spar with you sometime, how’s that sound?”

Foggy chuckled.

Matt looked impatient.

Karen got back to the point.

“I’ve always been athletic. I had, like, seven years of gymnastics under my belt, and I played basketball. But I couldn’t handle the locker rooms anymore, or getting that chalk they use for the bars on my hands and in my _nose_ …” Karen shuddered. “It was too much.”

Just existing, some days, was still too much, but Karen didn’t tell them that.

“I couldn’t just sit around and let the world scream at me and do nothing, either. After the... After, fighting was the only thing that made sense. It was clean. Balanced.” She blinked slowly, lost in the memory. “So I went to every teacher close enough to get there on my bike. Some of them were,” she choked on a sudden laugh, “really shitty. Like, white guys obsessed with Bruce Lee who rented the space above a pawn shop as their ‘dojos.’ That bad.”

Matt let out a tiny snort of laughter, in spite of himself. Foggy gave her a silent thumbs up.

Karen continued, heartened.

“With the rest, the ones I learned the most from, it was about discipline. I needed that.” Of everything she had said, this seemed to resonate the most with Matt. His lips fell open slightly, and his breath caught on an understanding _oh_. “I didn’t exactly learn to… to ‘kick ass’ so much as learn to not lose my mind. The fighting skills are just a bonus.”

“A bonus you seem to be making the most of,” Matt said.

Karen couldn’t deny that.

“ _You_ told me about the evil in this city, Matt.” She was worried that it sounded accusatory, but if this didn’t break them then nothing would. “I won’t lie to you and say I was totally selfless, but.” She remembered Daniel’s blood. “I always did it for justice.”

Now Matt was the one with no ready response.

Foggy, for his part, was more somber now. The joy of being the one in the know seemed to have worn off. He shifted closer to Matt, who instinctively leaned against him.

Karen wished, with a kind of sudden yearning that stuck fast in her throat, to sit with them on that couch. To be part of that quiet intimacy.

“You said--” Matt’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “You said you ‘became like this.’”

“When I was twelve,” Karen clarified. Foggy’s eyes widened.

“Your scars,” he whispered, putting two and two together. Matt inclined his head.

“What scars?” he asked.

Karen wanted to laugh. Somehow, it hadn’t occurred to her that Matt didn’t know. Maybe he would have shied away, like so many did, if he could have seen her, or-- and the thought made the almost-laugh wither away behind her teeth-- if he touched her.

“I usually tell people I was in an accident when I was a kid,” Karen explained. “Technically, that’s true.”

“But you don’t tell them that accident gave you ESP or whatever,” Foggy said.

“It’s not-- never mind.” Karen pushed a handful of hair out of her face. “I still don’t really understand why I am the way I am instead of being dead.”

“Do you mean the super-senses,” Matt asked wryly, “or the vigilantism?”

“The senses,” Karen answered truthfully, a twist of a smile on her lips. “I know what I’m fighting for.”

Matt nodded. “I get it, too.”

Karen wanted to make a teasing comment, something like _“I wish Foggy had taken it this well,”_ but her luck had been running on fumes for longer than she cared to admit. It wasn’t clear, yet, where she stood with the two of them.

“In fact,” Matt continued, “if I could do what you do, I’d probably be running around in a mask too.”

Foggy made a noise that could only be described as a squawk.

“Not if you cared about my blood pressure, you wouldn’t,” he said. Matt smirked.

Karen felt part of that permanent ache inside her lift, just a little. She may not have known where she stood with Matt and Foggy, but she knew exactly where they stood with her. She could not, under any circumstances, lose them.

“We’d watch out for each other,” Matt assured Foggy. He turned his attention back to Karen. “But your accident. What happened? I mean, if you’re alright with talking about it.”

“It’s fine. It was a long time ago,” she said. It was also far from the most traumatic thing that plagued Karen’s thoughts. Relatively speaking, thinking about the accident was an emotional walk in the park. “I don’t know everything, but here’s what I do know:

“There used to be a military base, or something, in Fagan Corners. It was abandoned after the Cold War. Kids would hop the fence in the middle of the night for fun.”

Matt and Foggy looked, if possible, even more concerned for her sanity than they already had been.

“That’s the kind of fun you have in small towns,” Karen informed them. “And there was this boy named Nate. My… not a friend, exactly.” Not at all, in fact. “A bully who picked on everyone but me. He could get me to do stupid shit, that’s the only reason he kept me around. He dared me, once, to break into the building and see what was in there. I knew it was a bad idea, and what happened after was my fault, but I didn’t even hesitate.”

Matt raised his eyebrows. “Why?”

“I like a challenge.” Karen shrugged sheepishly. “And I probably would have explored the place on my own anyway.”

“So you were _that_ kid,” Foggy said.

“Yeah.” Karen gave a tiny smile. “Nate had a nickname for me. He called me ‘Daredevil.’”

They didn’t talk about it, after that.

Nelson and Murdock opened their doors again, two lawyers and a secretary ready to carry the burdens of the innocent. Matt moonlighted as an ameteur investigator; Karen, a violent vigilante; and Foggy, a reluctant accessory to both-- though his reluctance eroded bit by bit as their daylight and nighttime activities began to bleed together.

The revelation of Karen’s abilities crackled in the air like an approaching storm: invisible, but with an energy impossible to ignore. When Foggy vocalized worry that one of them would get kidnapped again, Matt tilted his head silently toward Karen as if to say _“it worked out last time.”_

She chewed on her lip until it bled, but still no one said a word.

 

-

On paper, the warehouse belonged to a subsidiary of a shipping company. That shipping company had, years ago, merged with a finance company, whose parent company had been bought out by a third party. That third party had merged it with another finance company, whose documents were, it was rumored, deep in the archives of the office of the old director. That director had, if anyone bothered to ask his former secretarial staff, since moved to a tiny bureau of a wholly separate business.

On paper.

In reality, it belonged to one very specific man. This man had never stepped foot in the warehouse before. He had been to this part of the city on business, of course, but even the greatest of unpleasantnesses in his line of work would have been preferable to the reason that brought him here now.

The blood splatter was distasteful. That was what caught the man’s focus: the unrefined gore of it. Normally, these things would be handled quietly, without getting his hands dirty in the literal sense.

Normally, the man who quietly handled them would not be lying with open, glassy eyes in a pool of his own blood.

Someone approached with an appropriate measure of deference, carrying a body bag and murmuring his intentions to “give him some dignity.”

One enormous hand waved the deferential man away. The enormous man to whom it belonged kneeled on the ground.

“I… I am making a promise to you,” Wilson Fisk whispered to the dead man. Two fingers twitched in an uncertain caress against Wesley’s sallow cheek. “Whoever has done this… They will pay. With everything they have-- and more. They will pay.”

A king remembers his debts, and a tyrant does not forget his debtors.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YIKES it's been a while. I want to thank everyone for sticking around! I am by far not done with Karen yet, believe me. She (and all of us) still have suffering to do. In the meantime, though, this chapter is 80% OT3 fluff. That's right, kids! The ship tags are actually there for a reason! Enjoy.

Not all nights were about Fisk.

Sometimes, the behemoth of a man and his endless power felt too big to even touch. There were problems that could be solved by a punch in the face, and then there were Byzantine conspiracies of Chinese heroin and Russian mobs. On nights like this one, Karen chose the former over the latter.

Some nights were as simple as a mugging here, a robbery there, after which she made her way home with sore muscles and a soothed itch under her skin.

Home.

_ Foggy’s apartment,  _ Karen reminded herself.  _ When did that start being home? _

She had gone back to living with Foggy after Matt’s stay in the hospital. It was nice to know she had someone to return to if things got bad. Foggy waited up for her more often than not when she went out, and his worry for her felt safe rather than suffocating. Karen felt that here, with him, was a place where she might actually belong.

She needed it, on nights like this.

Some nights were simple and satisfying, and then there were nights when Karen heard the screams of a young woman--a  _ girl _ , Jesus, she couldn’t have been halfway done with high school yet--pulled by her hair down an alley by a beast in the body of a man.

Karen laid him out with one punch and kept going. She didn’t stop throwing her fists into the crunching bloodbag of his face until the girl’s rapid, shallow breathing pulled her out of it. A panic attack wasn’t a problem Karen could force into submission, either; in the chilly night, the salt smell of a child’s frantic tears and the copper tang of her bleeding nose felt bigger and more impossible to defeat than all the crime lords in all the cities in the world.

Karen’s feet landed, with a quiet crunch, in the gravel on the roof of Foggy’s building. She listened past the floors directly below into the familiar reverberations of his apartment. There was his heartbeat, slow with sleep.

There was another heartbeat, too, also deeply asleep _.  _ Right next to Foggy’s.

Karen’s arms were sore, her left leg was beginning to cramp, and suddenly her chest felt too tight.

Sliding down the ladder of a fire escape, Karen realized that she knew the other heartbeat too. She hung upside down, unlatching the window with practiced ease, and recognized it as Matt’s.

Karen smiled wryly. She would have been happy to know he was there, happy for the both of them, she supposed, if there were room in her heart. Instead, she was filled with the nightmares of a little girl who could have gone unsaved.

She slipped in the window and pulled off the mask. The lights were still on in Foggy’s living room. Foggy himself was sleeping with his head propped on the arm of the couch. His mouth hung wide open, letting out the same steady snores Karen anchored herself with on troubled nights. His half-undone tie was draped over his shoulder, and he had thrown a leg across Matt’s lap. Matt himself slept sitting upright, but crumpled like a puppet abandoned by its puppeteer. His glasses dangled from one ear.

They were rumpled and fully dressed, surrounded by a sea of papers and empty takeout boxes, but they were more at peace than Karen had ever seen.

She clicked the window shut, and Matt’s breathing shifted into wakefulness. 

“It’s me,” she said, before he could ask. It was basic courtesy, letting the blind man know who was sneaking up on him. Still, Matt’s smile was like a rosy dawn.

“Welcome back. Hey, Foggy,” Matt swatted at the leg in his lap until Foggy snuffled and let out a questioning grumble. “Karen’s home.”

There it was again. Home. 

Foggy grunted. “Sorry we’re taking up your space,” he said, sitting up. He and Matt stretched simultaneously, and their necks made identical cracking sounds. Karen fought the urge to grind her teeth. She imagined, suddenly, soothing the cricks in their necks away with her own two hands. The idea dissolved as quickly as it had come. 

This wasn’t a night for wishing.

“It’s okay.” She made her way down Foggy’s claustrophobic hallway to the the kitchen. She rooted through the fridge, hoping for something stronger,  _ cleaner,  _ than beer and coming up empty. “I won’t be sleeping for a while, anyway.”

“What’s wrong?” Foggy asked. He didn’t raise his voice, a habit he and Matt had picked up since learning about her senses--yet another thing they didn’t talk about.

“Are you hurt?” Matt asked suddenly. “If someone hurt you…” His voice was just this side of a growl, and not only because he’d just woken up.

“I’m not hurt.” She leaned back against Foggy’s fridge and closed her eyes. Her head rested on a rubber magnet, the one shaped like an avocado wearing sunglasses. She didn’t bother to move. 

“Someone else is,” Matt guessed after a long silence.

“Yes.” Karen could still feel the trembling in the girl’s hands, the way she seemed to have forgotten how to stand until a woman with a mask and bloody knuckles helped her to her feet.

“Did you stop them? The people who did it?” Foggy asked. He hadn’t moved a muscle since sitting up.

“Yes,” Karen said again. 

Matt’s socked feet padded across Foggy’s creaking wooden floor. He rounded the corner, coming toward her with all the caution and concern of someone approaching a wounded animal. 

He held a hand out, about a foot off the mark. Karen couldn’t help but take it.

“Come back to us,” he said without a trace of fear. And, well. How was Karen supposed to say no to that?

Next door, a jack russell terrier gnawed softly on its owner’s shoe. Two floors up, a twelve-year-old with bronchitis kept himself and his mother awake with coughing. Minor sins were committed in spite of love, and they would soon be forgotten because of it.

Karen was back in the living room, nestled firmly between Matt and Foggy on a silk-sheeted fold-out couch, and she was talking.

“I walked her to the police station,” Karen said. “I told her to go to Brett, that she could trust him to take care of her. I did everything I was supposed to do, and I’m so thankful I got there in time, but…”

Foggy’s chin brushed against her shoulder.

“But what?” he asked. Matt ran his hand through Karen’s hair. She pushed, almost involuntarily, into the touch.

“I got too caught up in Fisk and what he’s done to me, to  _ us _ .” She reached, pulled back, and found enough boldness to reach again for Matt and Foggy’s hands. She held them both; Matt’s long fingers were calloused and cold, while Foggy’s palms were as soft as a child’s and slightly sweaty. Both were strong and did not tremble. “I almost forgot what I’m actually fighting for. We’re not doing this to save ourselves. We’re doing it for her. That girl, and her family, her friends… There’s a whole, a whole web of love that holds this city together, and if we don’t do something about it, Fisk could unravel it all. I lost the big picture, but tonight reminded me of just how much work I still have to do.”

Foggy squeezed Karen’s hand tight. Matt’s quiet chuckling buzzed in her bones.

“What’s so funny?” Foggy asked.

“It’s not funny, exactly,” Matt said. “It’s just that… I have the opposite problem. Carrying the weight of the city, I mean, and forgetting the people who make it worth saving.”

Karen laughed with him.

“We make a great team, don’t we?” As she said it, she understood just how true it was. Karen toppled giants, Matt held aloft the meek, and Foggy--when he wasn’t busy keeping the two of them sane--sifted through the rubble. 

“Yeah,” Matt breathed. “We do.” He shifted toward her, then, and the world tilted and snapped into place anew.

The hand in Karen’s hair slid down to her cheek, fingertips just grazing the edge of an old scar, then cupped her jaw. Matt’s mouth parted on a warm exhale.

“Matt,” Karen could feel the heat of Matt’s face on the skin of her lips. She heard his pulse skip in time with her own. “Are you doing what I think you’re doing?”

“Do you mind?” Matt asked.

“Please,” she replied in a low voice. “Be my guest.” The night was dark, but Karen would not close her eyes against what little light was there, however unexpected.

When he kissed her, he did it like he still wasn’t sure it was allowed. Matt’s lips were chronically chapped and his ever-present scruff was scratchy, but he kissed so sweetly and slowly that it warmed Karen to the tips of her toes.

On her other side, Foggy’s heart rattled his ribcage.

“Hey, guys,” he joked as they pulled apart. “Still here.” There was a waver in his voice, and a hoarseness. Karen twisted her head and looked at him.

“You’re more than welcome, too,” she said. Foggy’s hand tightened around hers.

Matt cleared his throat.

“Um, same here,” he whispered. The blush staining his cheeks spread down his neck. “If you want to.”

If Karen was surprised by this turn of events, Foggy was dumbstruck. She almost burst out laughing at the expression on his face. 

He looked as if he couldn’t believe two people as wonderful as these, who knew so many of his cracks and flaws, would care for and want him so deeply. He looked like love and acceptance were as new and startling as the greenness of grass in the spring.

Actually, Karen may have been projecting. 

At the very least, Foggy looked like someone had smacked him with a two-by-four.

He pressed his mouth to Karen’s more decisively than Matt had done. He was less restrained, more eager. Karen thrilled at the unspoken challenge and matched him, movement for movement.

When she heard the way Matt’s breathing had gone shakey beside her, Karen smiled so wide she broke the kiss.

“Can you hear us, Matt?” she asked, meeting Foggy’s eyes. He smiled, impressed and a little flushed. Karen preened internally. Her heart did somersaults, too much oxygen in her brain filling her with glittering champagne bubbles.

Her left hand was still holding Matt’s. She pulled their clasped hands to her face and kissed his knuckles. Foggy smirked, raised an eyebrow, and bent forward to do the same. 

Matt gulped.

“Yes.” The word came out strangled. “I can feel you moving, too. I… I want--” He pulled his hand from Karen’s and twisted it to skim across Foggy’s cheek.

“Is this-- Do you seriously--?” Foggy stammered, flushing pinker around his ears.

Karen threaded her fingers back through Matt’s. She felt tiny bristles of five o’clock shadow where her knuckles pressed against Foggy’s face.

“I don’t want to steal all the kisses for myself,” she said, blinking her big, blue eyes in a show of innocence. The effect was probably ruined by the grin she couldn’t quite bite back. “How is that fair, Foggy?”  
“Oh,” he breathed at last. “Fuck it.”

Foggy leaned swiftly across Karen and pulled Matt into the third kiss of the evening. Matt made a sound that could have been a joyful shout, but being muffled my Foggy’s lips, it turned into something searingly satisfied.

Karen watched them. Foggy’s pale fingers disappeared into the puff of dark hair at the back of Matt’s head. There were tender sighs and gentle touches, but neither seemed to even consider letting go of Karen. She was, in that moment, inextricable. She was not excluded by their intimacy; she reveled in it, was instrumental to it, and hoped with every beat of her healing heart for  _ more, more, more _ .

“It’s about fucking time,” Foggy murmured into Matt’s neck. Karen laughed because yes, it really was. She put her mouth, the tip of her tongue just barely there, to the skin behind Foggy’s ear where his pulse jumped.

More kisses drifted across warm skin, sparking like fireflies in the wet spring air. It was a shame, Karen thought dizzily as Matt licked into her mouth, that there were no fireflies in the city. The memory of iridescent wings, shimmering in their living light, mixed with the taste of Matt’s breath on her tongue and made Karen think of cathedrals, of stained glass, of hymns rising up and up in the spilling glow of the sun-- 

Foggy nipped at her ear, and her mind snapped back to nostalgia. Chasing the fireflies with extravagant joy was the memory of a floppy-eared dog. His snapping teeth missed the dancing lights each and every time, but the fun was in the leaping, bounding chase, the rush of wind through fur and gentle hands… 

Somewhere in the midst of it all, Foggy grasped at Matt’s sleeve, sharing a look with Karen. She nodded and told Matt:  _ “stay.” _ It was obvious from the start that he would say yes without hesitation, but they knew him too well to think he wouldn’t need to be asked. 

Gleaming warmth, as sticky as honey and twice as golden, smoothed over into the deeper part of night.

There was a period of shuffling, less awkward than it should have been in theory, as everybody settled into a pile of grasping limbs and relief. The storm had not broken the way Karen expected, but sweet rain was more welcome than a hurricane anyway.

“So,” Matt said solemnly into the space between Foggy’s armpit and a cushion. “I have one question…” A silence stretched long and thin. Karen felt Foggy seize up beside her, nervous about what reservations Matt might have. Her own heart climbed into her throat, until Matt finally finished his sentence. “Whose foot is this?” 

He kept a straight face until Karen started laughing.

The only time Karen had heard Matt giggle like this was when he was out of his head on pain medication. Foggy’s laughter, when it began, was a free, easy thing that kept the other two going. They launched into a cycle of giggling in fits and starts until it was finally determined to be Foggy’s foot half wedged under Matt’s leg.

“We gotta turn off the light,” Foggy whined once they were all re-settled, “but I don’t want to move.”

“Here.” Karen leaned just far enough to reach one of the squishy stress balls that lived on Foggy’s side table. She chucked it over her shoulder, and it hit the light switch dead-on.

“Oh my god.” Foggy lifted his head just enough to stare at her through the sudden dark. “Your superpowers are awesome.”

“What happened?” Matt mumbled into a pile of Karen’s hair.

“I’ll tell you in the morning, Matt,” she said as she snuggled back down between her beautiful, drowsy boys. 

Foggy fell asleep first, Matt close behind, and Karen drifted off with the thought that there was nothing cleaner than this, nothing purer.

There might be an awkward morning after, averted eyes and hastily-cleared throats and  _ “oh is this your coffee mug?”  _ Or maybe one of them would wake up first and sneak out, leading to an even more awkward day at the office. Hell, the one who left might even be Karen. It wouldn’t be out of character for her to run from a gift like this, freely given. 

But if the night had taught her anything, it was this: despite all evidence to the contrary, the three of them were sometimes capable of actually talking through issues like reasonable adults. Failing that, they seemed to have a pretty good track record so far for forgiveness.

A young woman was safe in her own bed tonight because of Karen. Karen was safe and loved for the first time in years. The world was shining in the imagined light of almost-dreams, nearly there but not quite yet.

They were going to be fine.

 

-

 

“Some things are more important, Karen,” Ben said through his scarf, which was so thick he practically vanished into it. He pulled the wool away from his mouth and took a sip of his coffee.

He and Karen were in the middle of a crowded cafe. Their standing appointments had become more twice-monthly than weekly since Fisk came out of the woodwork, but there was no intention of stopping. Talking over coffee was an anchoring ritual for both of them.

“I know,” she said. And then again, softer, “ _ I know _ . But he’s burning himself out, Ben. I’m not begging you to publish anything--”

“No, that’s  _ his  _ job,” Ben snorted.

“--but he needs you in his corner. You know what you’re doing.” Karen smiled, proud and pleading. “The rest of us are out of our depth.”

“After that stunt he pulled at the retirement home, I’m not so sure my head’s above water either,” Ben admitted. Karen flinched at the memory of what the visit with Fisk’s mother had almost cost Matt. What it had almost cost them all.

Ben didn’t know, and Matt wanted to keep it that way. Karen had made another promise.

She took a long sip of coffee to stop the trembling in her hands.

“You met Matt because of the Union Allied story,” she said. It wasn’t a question, but Ben nodded anyway. “So you know how that file ended up in the hands of Nelson and Murdock?”

Ben nodded, again, and chuckled.

“I thought a woman in a mask backflipping off of fire escapes was going to be a crazy quote to sell issues,” he said. “Some joke we could all laugh about later. I didn’t expect her to keep showing up.”

Karen smiled and folded her hands.

“I have a proposition for you,” she said.

Ben squinted.

“You look like you’re about to offer me a fiddle of gold, but I’ll bite.”

“It’s not a trick, Ben. I think I can give you something worth your time, if you keep helping with Matt’s--” she paused. The fiasco with Foggy, then Matt, then the two of them combined, in regards to her double life had been a defunct carnival ride of emotion. It had not, however, broken anything that couldn’t be put back together, better than before. “ _ Our _ fight against Fisk.”

“I hope it’s better than the blueberry Danish Matt bribed me with last time.”

Karen took a deep, steadying breath. This wasn’t part of her promise. 

“How about an exclusive interview with the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen?”


End file.
